


Tunnel Vision

by amythis



Category: Laverne & Shirley (TV)
Genre: Multi, Technical virginity, Time Travel, What is reality?, flying car, swan boat, unavoidable voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:14:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 33,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24991381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amythis/pseuds/amythis
Summary: 2 boys + 2 girls + 1 swan boat ± 2 or 3 years = 1 heaving mound of flesh
Relationships: It's Complicated, Laverne DeFazio/Lenny Kosnowski, Shirley Feeney/Andrew "Squiggy" Squiggman
Comments: 189
Kudos: 3





	1. The Twist

It was the summer of '62 and the boys agreed to drive the girls to the Waukesha County Fair since the girls' car was in the shop. Well, it was more like Laverne convinced Lenny, because she knew that Shirley wanted to see all the cute baby animals, and Squiggy agreed to it when Laverne said the girls would pay for the food.

"Lenny understands this isn't a date, doesn't he?" Shirley asked as they were getting ready the morning of the fair.

Laverne paused in doing her makeup and said, "Lenny knows exactly what this is."

"Then maybe you should try to look a little less...."

"Sexy?" Laverne said, teasing Shirley and her hair.

"Well, yes." Laverne was in shorts and a halter top, not too outrageous considering the weather, but Shirley knew that it didn't take much to get Lenny going. And Laverne should know it, too, but that didn't stop her from putting on false eyelashes.

"Maybe I'll hit it off with a cute guy at the fair."

"What kind of future could you possibly have with someone who lives all the way over in Oconomowoc?"

"Sometimes it's not about the future, Shirl. Sometimes it's about now."

Shirley knew she'd get nowhere when Laverne was in this mood. She decided to concentrate on discouraging Squiggy. She put on the bare minimum of makeup, just coral lipstick and a little baby-blue eye shadow, and she wore a modest sundress, revealing bare arms but not much of her legs, and none of her cleavage, such as it was. OK, so it had spaghetti straps and her shoulders were one or two of her best features, but even Squiggy's lust would be subdued.

As they went into the living room, Laverne said, "I can't wait to try the corn dogs."

"Hello." Squiggy was wearing an over-sized straw hat, overalls, a plaid shirt, and his high-tops.

"Hey, Laverne, look what I got from Fonzie!" Lenny had on part of a cow costume, apparently the cow costume that had indirectly led to Shirley almost becoming Mrs. Richie Cunningham last summer.

"Len, what are you doing?"

"Don't talk to him, Laberne. He's just supposed to moo."

"Moo," Lenny said sheepishly.

Shirley crossed her arms. "Then you explain, Squiggy."

"Gladly. This is our plan to get into the fair for free."

"I am not going to have our lovely country outing spoiled by your crazy schemes."

"Geez, I'll pay for your tickets," Laverne said, yanking off the cow head.

"Thanks, Laverne," Lenny said, "now I can breathe." Then he breathed heavily as he looked her up and down.

"Quit that or we're not goin'."

Lenny stopped panting, looked away, and started stripping off his cow shirt and cow trousers. He had tight blue jeans and a white undershirt underneath, and Shirley noticed Laverne noticing.

"We'll pay for you girls on all the rides."

Shirley doubted there would be many at a small-town fair, but she said, "Thank you, Squiggy."

"Hopingly, there'll be a Tunnel of Love." Squiggy smacked his lips and Lenny bit his hand.

Shirley could've backed out then, but she really did want to see the cute baby animals. And how was she to know that it would lead to a broken pinky promise, the near loss of her virginity, and probably irreversible time travel?

....

Once again, Squiggy got the short end of the deal. Oh, sure, he got the prettier, sweeter girl like usual, but he knew she probably wasn't gonna put out until he married her and was ready for procreativity. And unlike Lenny, Squiggy was not yet ready to become a familiar man.

"Why should I drive all the way to Podunkville?"

"Oconomowoc. And I'll drive."

"You know what I mean, Len. It'll be another double date where we get hardly anything off 'em."

"If we show them a good enough time, they might kiss us, like after La Fondant."

It had been three years and Lenny was still unbalanced by Laverne's smooch. Squiggy hadn't seen it because he'd been reeling from the sweet Feeney lips, but Lenny had described it vividly in their apartment once his tremors stopped.

And that big smacker wasn't even the one that got to the suspectible lad the most. There was the night that Lenny stayed out all night, when Squiggy had kicked his date out at midnight. (Francine had to work the next day anyway, and they'd finished and she'd mostly sobered up by then.) Lenny swore nothing much happened, on a physical level, except for one soft kiss after Laverne told him how perfect they was for each other. Well, she meant perfect as friends, but she kept sending Lenny mixed signets, and Squiggy figured she didn't know what she wanted, unlike Shirley.

"After all," Lenny now continued, "she blew in my ear when she asked me to take 'em."

"In front of Shirley?" Laverne tended not to ply her wiles on Lenny around her roommate unless Shirley was manipulating Squiggy at the same time.

"Nah, Shirley was out with Carmine."

Most people were baffled by the Feeney-Ragusa relationship, how two people could love each other for so many years without doin' it, in or outside of marriage. But Squiggy understood it perfectly. Carmine was a placeholder. He was someone that Shirley could go out with not just when she wasn't seeing anyone else, but until Squiggy was ready to propose. Carmine must've understood that, and it was why last summer he had spoken up at Shirley's almost-wedding in the countryside, even though he'd never asked her to become Mrs. Big Ragoo.

"Why can't he take her to the fair?"

"A big dance recital at his studio, although I don't know how they're gonna recite dances."

If Carmine weren't a former Golden Gloves champion with mob connections, Squiggy would call him a sissy. Squiggy was sure Shirley would prefer to spend the day with him anyway, even if she was having Lenny and Laverne tag along as chapterones.

"Tell Laverne I'll go if they pay for the food." He thought of having the girls pay for the tickets, too, but he had a plan for that.

Lenny came back with a hickey that he had to lift his hair to shyly show off, and a promise that Laverne would feed them at the fair. So Squiggy thought he might at least get to hold hands with Shirley on the Paris wheel. He had no idea that in a couple days his hands would hold the future, among other precious items.


	2. Big Boat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Big boat up the river and she can't come down"— Peter, Paul and Mary, 1962

"Did you know that _The Wizard of Oz_ had its original premiere in Oconomowoc? And Oconomowoc Lake is famous for...."

"Shirl, you're supposed to be looking at the map, not reading the boring facts inside."

Shirley sighed and turned to the back of the brochure she'd taken at the entrance to the fair. She would read the brochure later, before tucking it into her 1962 scrapbook. And she knew Laverne would take lots of photos, like usual.

"The baby animals are this way." She pointed to the left.

"When do we eat?"

"We just got here, Len."

"Ladies' choice first, Lenny."

Shirley blinked. She wasn't used to Squiggy being the more considerate one of the boys. He was probably up to something, but she'd still go ahead and see the baby animals.

The ducklings, goslings, chicks, piglets, lambs, calves, foals, etc. were adorable. She wished she could take some home. "Oh, Laverne, I want kids!"

"There's your cue, Squig." Lenny grinned and elbowed his best friend in the chest. Squiggy scowled.

"I meant goats."

"No, Shirl, we're not taking home even a baby bunny."

"Oo, where are the baby bunnies?"

She could've spent all day in that barn if her friends had let her. She only wished that she could touch the animals but there was no petting zoo.

Eventually she could no longer pretend that the growls came from lion cubs instead of Lenny's stomach. "OK, let's get some food." She decided she could come back to this barn later, when the other three were doing the rides.

She had had a big breakfast because, unlike the others, she was not fond of fair food. She had once told Laverne that she treated her body as a temple while Laverne treated hers as an amusement park. She hadn't just meant that, unlike Laverne, she was careful about what she wore and who she made out with, and how much, but she also meant that she tried to eat healthier than most of their friends. Not that she didn't have junk sometimes, but Lenny and Laverne were like Templeton the rat in _Charlotte's Web._

She got nauseous just watching them eat candy apples, elephant ears, fudge puppies, and, yes, corn dogs. She just sipped pink lemonade and fanned herself with the brochure. It wasn't even noon yet and the sun was already beating down.

"Let's get in the shade," Squiggy said before Laverne and Lenny could get seconds on fried sugar. He led them over to the side of a pink building.

Shirley was about to thank him for his thoughtfulness, when she noticed they were standing in line for a ride.

....

Squiggy's washwords for the day were subtlety and restraint. It was the less-is-more approach and might not get him any further than coming on strong, but it would waste less energy. And the heat was already getting to him, especially in overalls. He didn't know how Vernon Bumpergaard could stand it. He thought of the scantily clad farmer's daughters that he and Lenny got to make out with a little after crashing Laverne and Shirley's double wedding last summer.

"Do you think Laverne would be jealous if she knew?" Lenny had asked when they were back in Milwaukee.

"No oftense, Len, but she was almost the Fonzess." Squiggy was just glad the farmer didn't know. He and Lenny had prevented a shotgun wedding without getting trapped in one themselves.

He now led his friends over to the shade of a pink building. Maybe they could go inside and look at quilts or something. He'd rather be bored than overheated.

"This is the Tunnel of Love!" Shirley spat accusitively.

"Oo, let's do this ride first!" Lenny reclaimed.

"It would be cooler inside," Laverne said.

Shirley looked at Laverne like she, Laverne that is, was crazy. Then she looked auspiciously at squiggy.

He hadn't planned this. If he'd known for sure that there was a love tunnel at the fair, then he would've worked up to it, left it for last. So he said, "Check the map and see if there's a tilt-a-whirl, Shirl. The breeze would feel nice."

Lenny clutched his stomach. "Not the Tilt-a-World!"

"Please, Shirl, it would be nice to float in a nice quiet swan boat."

Shirley hesitated and then tucked the brochure into her bare right armpit and said, "OK, on three conditions. One, we share a swan. Two, we all make a solemn pinky promise to never speak of this to anyone. And, three, you keep your hands off me."

She was glaring at Squiggy again. He noticed that she didn't make Lenny promise to leave Laverne alone. Maybe she thought Laverne could take care of herself, or maybe she'd accepted, as he had, that it was a tossed cause preventing what had been slowly building between their best friends.

"How can I do a pinky promise without touching you?"

"Pinkies only," she said, holding up both of hers.

Laverne rolled her eyes but crooked her right pinky around Shirley's left. Squiggy set down his bag of buttered popcorn on an empty bench and wrapped his littlest finger around Shirley's right pinky. Lenny looked at the three of them and then stuck his candy apple in his mouth. Once his hands were both free, he simultaneously finger-hugged Laverne and Squiggy.

"Repeat after me: I solemnly swear I will never tell another living soul about the four of us going into the Tunnel of Love together."

Squiggy's eyes met Laverne's as they parrotted Shirley and he could see that she thought this was as ridiculant as he did but they were both used to humoring Shirley. Lenny's expression was solemn and intent, as if he took the vow very seriously, but his mouth was full as he recited it.

"Are you in line or what?" a pigtailed teenaged girl asked irritably, as her farmboy boyfriend cracked his knuckles near Squiggy's sensitive ears.

The foursome's hands broke the circle and Shirley said, "Yes, we're in line."

Squiggy overheard Laverne tease Lenny in a whisper about his long fingers. Shirley had her head buried in the brochure again and probably didn't notice Lenny's face reddening, not from the sun, but from a closer heat source.


	3. That's Old-Fashioned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It's a modern changing world  
> Everything is moving fast  
> But when it comes to love  
> I like what they did in the past"
> 
> —The Everly Brothers, 1962

Shirley couldn't believe she'd agreed to go into the Tunnel of Love with Squiggy, especially when he'd given her an out. He was being remarkably gentlemanly that day. Had he somehow lost interest after all these years? On the other hand, his politeness and consideration might mean he was still interested but was wooing her in a subtler, far less crude way. She was still half expecting the boys to cry, "Double makeout!" and try to jump them in the swan boat. And this time, Laverne might not slap Lenny and push him off her.

Shirley still wasn't sure what was going on with Laverne and Lenny. Well, Lenny was as always as readable as a comic book. He wanted Laverne, pure and simple. Well, maybe not that pure.

But did anyone, even Laverne, know what Laverne wanted? There were some cute guys at the fair, including Laverne's type of tall and muscular, but Laverne's attention seemed more on the food, although unlike Squiggy with his popcorn and Lenny with his caramel apple, Laverne wasn't taking snacks on the ride.

When their group got to the front of the line, they had to pass up the single-seated boats and wait for a double. The couples that pushed past them, including the knuckle-cracker and his girlfriend in pigtails, boarded from the right, but when a possible boat pulled up, Lenny shouted, "I call shotgun!" and scrambled into the front seat before the two departing couples had fully exited from the left.

Laverne shook her head but instead of telling Lenny to scoot over, she climbed over him and landed in what would've been the driver's seat if the swan had a steering wheel. It would probably be pretty dark in the tunnel, but Lenny's face lit up like Fourth of July fireworks.

"After you," Squiggy said, holding out his arm with a chivalrous flourish.

Shirley had had time to think about this. While it was risky getting in any backseat with Squiggy, it wasn't like they'd be parked on a lonely road. The boat would be moving, and the water looked shallow enough that, if she had to, she could jump out of the boat and wade to the exit. And she could chaperone Laverne and Lenny more easily from the back seat than the front.

If Laverne wanted to kiss Lenny, Shirley wouldn't interfere. The two of them had kissed in the past and Laverne seemed to enjoy it, if less than Lenny did. (No one on Earth seemed to enjoy kissing as much as Lenny enjoyed Laverne's kissing.) But if Laverne forgot herself there in the semi-darkness, Shirley would immediately serve as Laverne's conscience. Not that there would be time for them to do the deed on this ride, but petting was a possibility.

The ride manager and the couple behind them coughed impatiently, but Squiggy kept his arm out like he had all the time in the world. Shirley carefully stepped in and slid over to the left, behind Laverne. Squiggy boarded the boat smoothly, like he did it every day, and sat down next to but not very near her. And the four of them set out on their voyage.

....

Squiggy thought he knew what Shirley was up to. She was hoping to seduce him in the backseat of the swan to guilt him into marrying her. So he would limit this to making out and let her make the first move, tempting as it was to snuggle up and put his arm on her almost bare shoulders.

The boat took off slowly. This wasn't exactly a rollercoaster. It could be a thrill ride but because of what happened on the swan. He thought, wrongly, that it didn't matter where they were going or how fast. He resisted making a smutty remark as the long-necked boat went through the oval entrance of the tunnel. When they emerged into the tunnel itself, he could see how dimly lit it was, but he could just make out the couple in the boat ahead making out. As for Lenny and Laverne, Lenny had the candy apple in one hand and Laverne's hand in the other.

Usually when Squiggy was in a tunnel de l'amour, he was looking at his date, or he had his eyes closed. This time, once his eyes adjusted, he could leisurantly take in his surroundings. The water was a bright Sapphic blue, while the walls were pastille shades with lots of hearts and flowers. The pale blue ceiling had fluffy clouds and rainbows.

The swan boats were painted white of course, but the cushions were golden up front and silver in the back. Squiggy could see into the front seat as well as he could in a car.

When Squiggy looked again, he saw that Lenny and Laverne were still holding hands, but the candy apple was in Lenny's lap and he and Laverne had raised all four hands to their mouths and were kissing each other's fingers, which Squiggy knew was one of Lenny's favorite techniques when he really liked a girl.

He glanced at Shirley to see her reaction. He wouldn't have been surprised if she was propulsed, since she was easily disgusted, but she was watching with a complicated expression. There was the prissy, protective side where she'd probably splash tunnel water on the front seat pair if they got too hot and heavy, but even Shirley Feeney wasn't prudent enough to halt hand-kissing. And, yeah, there seemed to be the side that regarded it as some odd custom. But, unless Squiggy was untaken, she also seemed to find it romantic.

He had seen this too many times, although not with Laverne, to find it that interesting himself. He looked over his shoulder at the boat behind theirs, a single boat where a guy with a crewcut was fondling the big tits of a redhead, under her Everly Brothers T-shirt. They both had their eyes closed as they necked, and Squiggy could've just eagled them the whole ride.

Then he heard Shirley let out a little sigh. He looked at Lenny and Laverne first and saw that their hands were now stroking each other's faces, while they seemed to be in the middle of a long but soft kiss. When he turned to Shirley, she had a wistful expression, like she was watching a love scene in a movie.

"Popcorn?" Squiggy whispered, holding out the bag.


	4. Louie Louie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Me sailed the ship all alone, me never think I'll make it home" —The Kingsmen, 1963

Shirley was starting to feel more like a peeping Thomasina than a chaperone. It wasn't that Shirley had never seen Laverne kiss someone before. Not even counting the day that Laverne kissed hundreds of sailors goodbye, including Shirley's brother Bobby, it had been a regular feature of Shirley's life since at least high school. But usually, either the kissing didn't go on too long or Shirley was herself otherwise occupied, kissing or not. But here she was in a swan boat with nothing else to look at, and she found herself fascinated by two far from gorgeous people she'd grown up with, like they were Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee in _A Summer Place._

It started with Laverne and Lenny moving their joined hands up to their mouths and then kissing through, around, and on their hands. Their hands must've been sticky from the fair food, but neither seemed to mind. After awhile, their hands parted and began to caress each other's cheeks, as their lips met softly. It at first looked like the sort of kiss that lasts only a moment, but it went on and on, as Lenny cupped and tickled Laverne's chin and she stroked his neck and ears.

Squiggy's whispered offer of popcorn startled her. She was tempted to refuse, especially since she already felt like a moviegoer, but she was just glad he wasn't trying to touch her. Hopefully, he'd be content to just watch the free show.

"Thanks," she whispered back, taking a small handful of popcorn.

Their friends in the front seat seemed as oblivious to the audience as if they were in a separate swan. Their tongues darted out like snake tongues, and then their mouths widened for a soul kiss. Shirley felt even more like she was at the zoo than she had in the baby animal barn, but she couldn't seem to look away. This time she grabbed a handful of Squiggy's popcorn without even looking.

"Hey, Shirl," he whispered.

She made a "not now" gesture and didn't say anything to anyone, even as Lenny lifted Laverne's camera from her chest.

....

Although the front seat action was getting more interesting, now with French kissing, Squiggy was not obliviated to his surroundings. He could watch their friends a bit and then see what was happening in the other swans. But after Shirley took her first bite of popcorn, eating like a bird, instead of piggy Laverne or bearish Lenny, Squiggy noticed that there were no longer swans in front of them.

This love tunnel was mostly just a straight shot. After all, this was a little country fair in Podunkville, not Disneyland. The rides couldn't get that fancy and elaborated. He had half noticed when they went around a corner, but he didn't realize at first that the tunnel had forked, and the double swan appeared to be on a side track.

His head whipped around and he saw that they were no longer being followed by the big-titted redhead.

"Hey, Shirl," he whispered, not wanting to interrupt Lenny and Laverne.

She waved her hand like she didn't want to look away from the front seat. So he let her have more popcorn and decided to watch awhile, too. Maybe it didn't matter that the four of them were sort of alone. Lenny and Laverne were acting pretty uninhabited anyway.

Lenny undid the neck knot of Laverne's halter top and lowered the front. Laverne wasn't as stacked as the redhead, but she had a nice pair and they were much more in the viscousinity. Plus, it was Laverne, which added a certain spice.

By the time they were fifteen, they'd agreed how the girls were to be divvied up. Hector, that dope, picked Anne Marie, because she seemed the wildest. ("How was I supposed to know she'd grow up to be a nun?") Lenny insisted on Laverne, and probably would've if there had been fifty girls to choose from. Squiggy didn't at all mind getting stuck with Shirley. He always suspected that the Feeney girl had a wild side, although he wouldn't get direct conformation until she had delusions that she was a stripper. And she really was the sweetest and prettiest, of all the girls he knew.

The boys mostly stuck to their selections, but Squiggy knew "Roxy LaTourism" got to Lenny as much as him, and there were times when Squiggy's eyes or even lips strayed to Laverne. And if Lenny didn't want Squiggy to see Laverne's chest, he could've picked a more private time and place to examinate it. For that matter, Laverne didn't have to let Lenny get to second base in front of him.

Squiggy glanced at Shirley, expecting her to say something, now that clothes was comin' off, but she seemed to misunderstand, since she murmured, "Thank you," and took a little more popcorn.  


Squiggy was puzzled but grateful that Shirley wasn't puttin' a stop to this. He wondered how much more he'd see before their swan sailed back into the daylight. He hoped that the double boats got double the length of track.

....

Shirley kept telling herself she needed to speak up and put a stop to this, until she replied to herself that Laverne was a grown woman of twenty-four and not exactly a virgin. For the first time in her life, she questioned why she had to police Laverne's love life. Yes, they were best friends and felt protective of each other, but this was Lenny Kosnowski for Pete's sake. He adored Laverne and would never deliberately hurt her. If anything, Shirley felt more protective of him. But he was a grown man of twenty-four and not exactly a virgin.

And there was only so far they could go in the Tunnel of Love after all. Yes, it might be embarrassing for Laverne to be caught with her top down, but there were usually flashing lights or some other cue when the end of the ride was approaching. Shirley would be willing to interrupt then, if Laverne didn't notice.

As for Shirley watching them, she felt a little guilty, but if they didn't mind, who was it hurting? This being 1962 and herself being a nice girl, she had never gone to any movie that showed more than kissing. There were no topless scenes, let alone ones where the woman thrust out her chest proudly and said, "What do ya think?" and the man responded, "Gorgeous!" before gently squeezing both breasts.

Shirley risked tearing her eyes away from the front seat scene to gauge Squiggy's reaction. He hadn't said anything since "Hey, Shirl." If he catcalled or made rude gestures, she was going to have to shut this down. If Lenny and Laverne wanted to make out in the Tunnel of Love so bad, they could take a single boat while Shirley went back to the baby animal barn.

His expression was blank, as only his face could be. He wasn't bored but he wasn't engrossed either. He held the popcorn bag out to her. She nodded, mouthed thanks, and took another small handful.

....

As Lenny necked with Laverne and played with her tits, Squiggy gauged his own reaction. First of all, he was happy for his best friend. Squiggy had seen Lenny go much further than this, but never with a girl who meant half, no, even a third, as much as Laverne meant to him. Secondly, that made Squiggy feel jealous in some complicated ways. 2a, although Squiggy had been in love a bunch of times, it never lasted more than a few weeks, while Lenny had been in love with Laverne for years. 2b, this was his Lenny, his boy, his man, his son, his father, his brother. No dame, even one who was grandfathered in since pooh-bear-ty, was gonna steal Lenny from him. And last but not lesser, Squiggy was gonna have to keep from reacting too much to the makeout, especially with Shirley sitting right next to him. He could control his kissy-faces and grabby-hands, especially since Lenny wouldn't call & response with hand-biting, but what if Squiggy got a stiffy? He'd have to hope that Shirley would be too distracted to watch his crotch.

And then Laverne bobbed for the apple in Lenny's lap and Squiggy's mind quietly exploded.


	5. You've Really Got a Hold on Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I don't like you, but I love you" —The Miracles, released in '62 but peaking in '63

One moment Laverne was necking with Lenny and then the next her head was in his lap. Shirley definitely wasn't an expert on such things, but she felt like there should've been more of a transition. She would tell herself later that she was too surprised to speak up, but it was already long past that moment.

If Laverne had put her head face up, that would be one thing. But she appeared to be licking Lenny's candy apple.

His eyes bugged out as he cried, "Wow, oh, God, oh, Laverne!"

Part of Shirley wanted to leap to her feet and order, "Stop teasing that poor boy, Laverne!" But she didn't want to rock the boat.

Laverne bit into the apple and then raised her head to Lenny's again. They shared what was left of the apple, biting and licking, Laverne holding it in place with both hands as Lenny caressed her breasts, teasing the nipples.

Unlike Laverne, Shirley was wearing a bra today, a padded one at that. So she hoped that Squiggy wouldn't notice that her nipples had just stiffened in sympathy with Laverne's.

....

Wow, Shirley's nipples were hard! Squiggy had watched the front seat show for awhile, disappointed that Laverne wasn't gonna undo Lenny's jeans and suck him off, but knowing it was probably just as well. Squiggy would get less worked up watching some more necking and breastplay. He was curious how Shirley was taking this. So he looked at her wide eyes and parted lips, and then his eyes dipped down to her chest, because looking at Laverne's bare breasts made him think about Shirley's covered bosom. The points of her nipples were two subtle little bumps and he knew he might've been imagining them, but he didn't think so.

He warned himself to not get too distracted by Shirley. He forced his eyes back to the front of the swan, where Lenny and Laverne had finished the apple and were licking caramel off each other's faces.

He reached into the almost empty popcorn bag without looking, only to find a soft, smooth hand there ahead of him. It joined pinkies with his, as if renewing their promise.

As Laverne reached down for Lenny's zipper, Shirley's palm clamped around Squiggy's little finger.

....

As when Shirley eavesdropped on Laverne talking sexily in her sleep, she guiltily let this keep playing out. She wasn't sure what Laverne planned to do with Lenny now, but Laverne was heading for the zipper of his jeans, and he had a very obvious erection.

Shirley had been going to get more popcorn, but she had felt Squiggy reaching for it at the same time, so she'd linked pinkies with him, to remind him of his promise not to tell. She didn't want Laverne's reputation to be ruined by whatever they were going to witness. But now she squeezed Squiggy's little finger for more than one reason.

She told herself it was to keep at least one of his hands from wandering, but part of her acknowledged that holding hands with Squiggy seemed minor compared to whatever Laverne had planned for Lenny. The next layer down, she felt like this voyeurism was something she was sharing with Squiggy, although she was sure he regarded it differently and she didn't exactly want to compare notes later. The deepest level, one that would never see the light of day, was where there lived her curiosity about what it would be like to have Squiggy inside her, and not just his finger in her hand.

Meanwhile, her gaze remained riveted on their friends, as if her eyes were disconnected from her hand. One of Lenny's hands slid up from between Laverne's bare knees and to the crotch of her shorts. He rubbed her there, as Laverne unzipped him and then lightly caressed the front of his Milwaukee Braves jockeys.

But when she tried to lower his jeans, he said, "Hold on, I gotta get something."

Laverne let go of Lenny, but she now touched herself, one hand rubbing her chest, the other between her legs, making herself moan. Squiggy's gasp was just audible as he withdrew his pinky and then thrust it back into Shirley's hand, now in the company of his ring finger.

....

They were killing him, the three of them, each teasing him in their own way. Laverne of course, the queen of teases, even if her main target was Lenny. And even Lenny, who was the most unguiled guy he knew, couldn't seem to just follow through, make infinitive moves, when Laverne was begging for it, like a butch in heat. If that was Squiggy in the front seat, he'd have one tit in his mouth and a hand down Laverne's shorts, while he'd be stroking off with the other, getting both of them ready to fuck.

Instead, one hand was gripping a silver seat cushion, while two fingers were inside possibly the only part of Shirley Feeney he'd ever have access to. And he half expected her to eject his intruding ring finger, since it wasn't part of the deal. Her very purity was a tease, especially since he still believed she was a tender trap, trying to capture his hand in mattressmony. He was rethinking the idea that she was going to let him have her in the swan. It now seemed more likely that she was going to let Lenny and Laverne get him so excited that he'd propose to Shirley at the Fish Cups stand.

Well, this ride couldn't go on forever, and maybe this would all just be a tease. Lenny and Laverne wouldn't go all the way and Squiggy would be saved from the balls and chains.

Then Lenny reached into a front pocket of his unzipped jeans and pulled out a rubber.


	6. You Can't Sit Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You gotta move, move, move, around and round  
> (You can't sit down, you can't sit down)" 
> 
> —The Dovells, 1963

Shirley knew she was naive in some ways, but she wasn't completely sheltered. Her father drank and gambled and probably committed adultery, although even now her mother wouldn't tell her everything. 

And she couldn't live with Laverne for five and a half years without becoming aware of some things. So she realized that that was a condom wrapper that Lenny was now shyly holding up for Laverne's approval, and he'd been hoping to be seduced in the Tunnel of Love.

Laverne grinned and said, " Stand up, Len."

He did, very carefully. Shirley was afraid that he'd clumsily tip the boat, but he braced one hand on the base of the swan's neck.

Laverne lowered his jeans and his jockey shorts down to his knees, so he handed the condom to her. Shirley couldn't help staring at Lenny's manhood. She had no way of knowing if it was typical, since she hadn't even seen Carmine's yet. But Laverne had seen a few and it obviously met her approval.

"Very nice, Len," she murmured, and then leaned forward and kissed it! Just the tip at first, and then along the sides.

Lenny stroked Laverne's teased hair and moaned, "Oh, Baby, yes, yes!"

Shirley heard Squiggy draw in his breath sharply, but she didn't blame him. She was biting her lower lip and gripping Squiggy's fingers tighter than ever.

Lenny turned his head and mouthed, "Sorry, Shirl."

She gave him a forgiving look and he shut his eyes, in bliss or contrition she wasn't sure.

Laverne tore open the foil wrapper with her teeth, which made Squiggy quietly whimper. She slid the condom onto Lenny's moist length, with both hands, and then licked the rubber. "Sit down, Len," she said, and he obeyed. Now she stood up, faced Shirley and Squiggy, and winked at them.

....

Laverne was completely vixenating the three of them. First she did the quick dick-lick, and then she Vulcanized Lenny, but what most got to Squiggy was that big, saucy wink, like she was on one of Großvater Squiggman's naughty Victrolian postcards. It was as if Marilyn Monroe had looked right out of the movie screen at Squiggy when he was a teenager. It ruined the illusion that Laverne and Lenny had forgotten they weren't alone on that swan.

Then Laverne turned her back on all of them and stripped off her shorts and panties, teasingly and yet too fast for Squiggy's mind to progress the information. All she had on now were sandals and the halter top that hung over her stomach.

"So pretty, Laverne!" Lenny sighed.

"Thanks, Len," she said and then backed against his long legs, finding her way, without looking, onto his lap. She teased her cunt gradually onto Lenny's cock, making Lenny groan with desire and impatience. Squiggy would've thrust right into her, but Lenny was letting Laverne do all the work so far.

Shirley gasped at the penetration. Poor girl, she'd never seen anything like this, and she'd probably planned to have her eyes shut on her wedding night, especially if it wasn't with Squiggy. True, she could've shut her eyes now but it was like she just couldn't look away. Squiggy, on the other hand, was at least as interested in her reaction as he was to what she was reacting to.

So he'd watch the front seat action, with Lenny stroking Laverne's chest with one hand as the other hand went around to her pleasure button, while Laverne bounced on Lenny's lap, and then Squiggy would gaze at Shirley's face, so innocent and beautiful, even now.

It was when Lenny started thrusting back that Shirley met Squiggy's eyes and whispered, "I feel so guilty watching this."

Squiggy shrugged. "It's a victimless crime."

She stifled her surprised laughter with her left hand, then her right hand relaced into his left, so that they were clasping like they really were at the movies. This was one of the most romantic dates he'd ever been on, but he wasn't gonna tell her that.

....

Shirley couldn't see everything, not with Laverne and Lenny's backs to her and their bodies pressed together. But she could hear them just fine, every animalistic sound, every half sentence. "Feels so!" "Want this!" "Yes, give me!" So Shirley let herself sigh and gasp.

Squiggy was surprisingly silent, other than his remark that almost made her laugh. She knew he couldn't be indifferent, but she expected much more of a reaction than this.

Then he whispered in her ear so that his hot, buttered popcorn breath touched her, although his lips did not, "You ain't stoppin' 'em."

Instead of whispering back and taking her eyes from Lenny's tender yet passionate kisses on the sides of Laverne's neck, Shirley shook her head.

"I get it. You're curious but this way it's just your eyes and ears that don't stay pure."

Was that it? She could live vicariously through Laverne and then just walk away as if nothing had happened? And what about Lenny and Laverne? Laverne wasn't a complete floozy and she must have some feelings for Lenny, but did this mean she was his girlfriend now? Or was this just an experiment for her? And Lenny obviously would be more infatuated with Laverne than ever, although he was a big boy and hopefully wouldn't get his heart broken too bad. And what if they were a couple now? How was Shirley supposed to feel about that?

Squiggy moved his head away from hers and watched the front seat mating again. Shirley turned her own head so she could try to guess how this crude, unsentimental man was reacting to his buddy "getting some." His pupils were dilated and his buttered lips slightly parted, but Shirley had seen him react like that to his moths mating. Then again, Squiggy was emotionally attached to his moths about as much as he was to Lenny. However, as far as she knew, he never imagined himself in the place of one of his winged friends. She knew enough about Squiggy's lust in general, and his lust for Laverne in particular, that he was probably imagining his own member inside Laverne, his own hands and lips on her body.

She felt a flicker of jealousy that she at first disowned and then examined. Did she want Squiggy to be thinking of her instead? She knew she didn't want to lose her virginity to Squiggy in a swan boat. But she at least felt like he shouldn't be looking at Laverne like that.

She asked herself if she felt any desire for Lenny, any wish that she was herself on his lap, feeling him inside her. While she could not deny that it was exciting to watch him voe-dee-oh-doe-doe with Laverne, she did not want to trade places. She was glad for Laverne's sake that he was a sweet but enthusiastic lover, because that was what Laverne needed in Shirley's opinion. Laverne had dated too many guys who either didn't give her goosebumps (Sal and Norman) or who mistreated her (too many examples to name). Randy had been everything Laverne deserved, but Randy had died a hero's death and Laverne was probably afraid of falling that hard again. Lenny was someone Laverne did love dearly as a friend, and she obviously liked making out with, and now making love with, him. 

As for Lenny, being with Laverne was, as he now panted, "Better than my dreams!" His thrusts got quicker and apparently "harder, deeper," as Laverne groaned. Laverne rocked on his lap and Lenny's tight bottom actually lifted them both off the golden seat cushion.

"Come for me, Lenny Honey!"

"YES, OH GOD, LAVERNE, YOU'RE SO, WOW!!!" 

Afterwards, Laverne climbed off him and fanned herself with her hand. "Whew, Len, you're very—"

Before she could finish, Lenny dropped to his half-covered knees and buried his head in her crotch.

....

The thing about watching Lenny eat a girl out was you couldn't see much, especially in a swan boat. So Squiggy turned his eyes back to Shirley. Her sweet blue eyes were bugging out at the sight of something she'd probably never even heard of. Laverne obviously had, because she murmured, "Sweet, sweet Len, oh yeah, God, on my clit, too!"

And then Shirley started massaging his hand with hers, so he rubbed back. And the two of them was kind of hand-humpin' as Laverne reached Clorox. Squiggy still figured this was all he was gettin' off Shirl, but he liked it. And as soon as this crazy ride ended, he'd dash for the nearest men's room and finally give Mr. Ambassador some release.

"More?" Lenny asked.

"Nah, you haven't even kissed my boobs yet."

"Sorry, I'll rectumfy that right now."

Laverne lay down, stretched out across the golden seats, and Lenny hovered over her, giving her chest all the attention either of them could desire. The pleasure sounds of both was so loud that both Shirley and Squiggy let little whispers and whimpers escape their half-open mouths. Squiggy really, really wanted to put his tongue down Shirley's throat, not for the first time, but he also wanted to keep watching. 

Lenny and Laverne really should've started wrapping things up, but instead Laverne held her arms out for Lenny and he grinned and snuggled up next to her. Within a minute, they was both snorin', Lenny more loudly than Laverne, although she was no slouch. 

Shirley put her mouth right up against Squiggy's ear and he imagined all kinds of things she might say in the moment before she whispered, "What happened to the other boats?"


	7. I Get Around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And we've never missed yet with the girls we meet" —The Beach Boys, 1964

Squiggy chuckled. "Oh, we lost them awhile back."

"Squiggy!" she hissed in his ear. "Why didn't you say something?"

"I tried to but you waved me off."

She blushed as she remembered. She moved her head away from Squiggy's and took more of a look around. There was no boat either before or after them. She had wondered, at the back of her mind, what the other people in the tunnel thought of the activities in their boat. But apparently no one was close enough to see or hear, which was very strange. Had they somehow been diverted to a side tunnel?

And how long could this side tunnel be? This ride had already lasted long enough for Laverne and Lenny to go all the way, and then some. Would their destination even be in Oconomowoc? Should they get out of the boat while they could and wade back to the entrance? Of course she and Squiggy would first have to wake up their friends and make them put their clothes back on.

"Look to your left, Shirl!" Squiggy's whisper shook with suppressed emotion.

She turned her head and saw a mural painted on the left wall, taking over from the generic pastels that weren't meant to distract the couples making out. The boat was moving very slowly now and she could take in every detail.

She saw a county fair, but larger and with palm trees. The crowd was bigger, too, but her eyes were drawn immediately to a group of four young but not very young people. The taller man had neck-length blond hair he wore slicked back, and he was in a blue Hawaiian shirt, faded blue jeans, and torn blue sneakers. The shorter man was in black, from his Greek fisherman's cap to his hair, to his jacket, to his T-shirt, and even to his jeans, and of course his black boots. Even his eyes looked dark and unreadable. The taller woman was in what looked like sort of a painter's smock, with white and purple splotches, but as tight as and almost as short as a T-shirt, with matching purple sandals. Her hair was fluffy and that color where blonde, brunette, and red overlap. And the shorter woman had a dark auburn bob and a knee-length gray dress with giant daisies on it, with matching gray pumps and handbag.

It was unmistakably the four of them, in other clothes and another time and place. The alternate Lenny was pointing at a wildly colored building labeled "Tunnel of the Summer of Love," while the Laverne and Squiggy were leading a seemingly reluctant Shirley by the hands.

And then the wall turned and their boat went round the bend.

....

This was gettin' real spooky now. How did whoever designed this love tunnel know they'd be there and put up a muriel of some kind of paralyzed world version of them? Or did it magically transmuggerfy for every party of four? Squiggy was metaflorically reading the writing on the wall, when it bent and their boat started to lead them past a giant funhouse mirror.

There was a swan boat in the refection, with four passengers, dressed the way they were in the painting. Well, dressed at first. The two guys and two girls sat cross-legged and then the golden front seat swiveled around to form a sort of bed with the silver seats. And then clothes started comin' off, mostly the two couples undressing each other, but the Shirley was takin' off the Lenny's sneakers, as the Squiggy lifted off a silver necklace from the Laverne's bare chest. (No bra under the purple-blotched T-shirt the Lenny had stripped off her.) The mirror sort of zoomed in like a camera, and the necklace looked like it was divided like the Pizza Bowl Three-Slice Special, but the bottom slice was in two halves.

The Shirley gave the Lenny a foot massage, and Shirley in reality blushed. Squiggy remembered Lenny telling him that she'd discovered Len's pleasure zone there. He recalled that feeling of jealousy but was distracted by the Squiggy lightly stroking the Laverne's breasts.

The Lenny didn't get angry but instead kissed the Laverne on the mouth. The Squiggy undid the Shirley's bra and then held a breast of each girl.

The Shirley kept rubbing the Lenny's feet, as the Squiggy nibbled at her neck. Lenny was getting hard and Laverne put her hand over the boner still covered by boxers that were in turn covered with that same strange circle as the necklace that Squiggy now draped around Shirley's neck. As Laverne teased Lenny through his underpants, Squiggy kissed Shirley's chest all around the necklace.

In real life, Shirley had let go of his hand when she turned to the left to see the painting. He was watching the silent screen, or mirror or whatever it was, over Shirley's shoulder, near but not touching her. She now reached back for his hand and held it against her stomach. He thought of how she wanted him to put babies in that belly, but he didn't move his hand away.

....

It had been one thing to watch Laverne and Lenny do the deed in front of her in real life, but now she was watching some sort of fantasy version of all four of them. She had to assume it was Squiggy's fantasy, since their friends were asleep on the front seat, Lenny's sneakers hanging over the right side of the boat. It certainly wasn't Shirley's fantasy, since neither man was a handsome doctor, or Fabian. That didn't mean she was going to stop watching.

It was like a silent movie, but in vivid color and without title cards. She'd never seen a stag film, but maybe this was what one would be like without a soundtrack. Except, yes, this one starred four ordinary people she was very familiar with. She blushed as the Squiggy licked the birthmark in the Shirley's cleavage.

She wasn't repulsed though, by any of this. She wanted to watch, and she liked sharing it with Squiggy. She reached back for Squiggy's hand, this time clasping it against her stomach, feeling its heat through the thin cloth of her sundress.

She wasn't entirely surprised that he fantasized about the two couples not being separate. Although she knew that Squiggy preferred her, and Lenny was devoted to Laverne, there had always been something non-exclusive and overlapping about the boys' pursuit. She was startled though when the Laverne cupped the Shirley's pointed chin and gently kissed her.

The Shirley hesitated for a moment and then kissed back. Shirley had given Laverne a few quick kisses over the years and knew how warm and soft her friend's lips were. This wasn't a brief kiss. The mirror girls were savoring it, deepening it.

The mirror boys watched in hungry delight, especially when the girls hugged as they knelt, pressing their chests together. Then Lenny stroked Laverne's hair as Squiggy traced Shirley's spine with his fingertips. The boys whispered something that was inaudible to real Shirley, but the girls both parted and smiled.

The two women lay down on the cushions, then cuddled and kissed some more. The men stripped off the women's panties, Lenny Laverne's and Squiggy Shirley's. The boys maneuvered around so that each put his head between his chosen girl's legs.

Real Shirley felt an unaccustomed but not unknown heat and wetness between her own legs.

....

Squiggy watched his other self and the familiar-looking but more libertied Shirley Feeney more than the other couple, but things was overlapping so much he couldn't split hairdos much. And he also watched the real Shirley, who was delicate but solid in front of him. She was definitely getting even more caroused, and his hands itched to touch the signs of her excitement, from her flushed face on down.

But even now he hesitated to do more than she initialated. He didn't want to lose control and find himself betruthed.

Still, when his other self started eating her other self out, trying not to bump heads with the blond noggin drinkin' in the DeFazio flavor, he couldn't help whispering in the actual Shirley's ear, "What do you want from me, Woman?"

Without speaking, her soft hand moved his sweaty hand up from her flat stomach up to her not exactly flat chest.


	8. People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Lovers are very special people  
> They're the luckiest people in the world"
> 
> —Barbra Streisand, 1964

The magic mirror didn't show every detail, but Shirley could imagine how Squiggy's tongue would feel against her privates, and she wanted it and didn't want it. In the world that presumably still existed outside this twisted tunnel, she wouldn't have even willingly let Squiggy touch her hand as much as she had in the last hour, or however long this had gone on. (Lenny was the only one of them wearing a watch, and she didn't want to wake him just yet.) But her breasts were tingling inside her padded push-up bra, so when Squiggy asked what she wanted, she knew the answer. Yes, she was tingling in the elsewhere whose doppelganger the Squiggman tongue was currently pleasuring, but even letting someone, especially him, get to second base, was more than she'd done lately, Carmine as always excepted. She led Squiggy's hand up to her chest, as her eyes moved back to the chests of the mirror girls. Ever since her late-blooming adolescence, Shirley had envied Laverne's curves, but Audrey Hepburn's slender elegance had reassured her. Meanwhile, Squiggy made his interest in large chests very clear, and yet he lusted after her anyway.

And after she led his hand to one of her breasts, he murmured, "Thank you," against her ear.

She nodded and let him rub the cloth and then put teasing fingers down the top of her dress. She bit her lip as he worked his way under her bra, hoping he wouldn't remark on the stuffing.

And in the meantime she watched the mirror boys pleasure the mirror girls, who necked and played with each other's breasts. The Laverne seemed to be the one to achieve release first, which made sense because she was the one more at home in her body. But after her silent moans and cries faded, she helped coax the Shirley along, putting her index fingers in her mouth, like she was going to whistle, then teasing Shirley's nipples with them.

Real Shirley watched her alter ego in fascination, her straining face, her swiveling hips. She hadn't had very many orgasms in her life at that point, and she'd certainly never been able to observe them from a distance. 

"You're a lot of woman, Shirley Feeney," Squiggy whispered, as he eased down her spaghetti straps.

"Thank you," she murmured, as he worked the top of her dress down enough to undo the clasp of her bra.

She shivered as he exposed her chest to the cool air of the tunnel, but she was also watching her other self fall back against the silver seat cushions. The Laverne knelt again, grinning down at her best friend. The Lenny looked up in confusion and hope. The Laverne leaned down and whispered something in his ear that made him grin and shift around so that he was lying on his back next to the shorter woman. He turned his head and kissed her on the cheek.

Meanwhile, the Squiggy had removed his head from the Shirley's crotch but now touched her there with one hand. And his counterpart was touching Shirley's real chest, gently caressing, except when he'd pinch the hard nipples.

The Laverne now stripped off the boxers with the divided circles on them, but the Shirley was not that bold. The Squiggy was shirtless, so when he sat up, his abundant black chest hair was visible. The Shirley had taken off the black boots before getting distracted by the very sensitive feet in the blue sneakers. The shorter man now unzipped his black jeans and lowered them to his knees. The taller woman turned her grin to him and, while straddling the knees of her main partner at this party, she put her hand into the black briefs. She played with what she found there, as she nuzzled the Squigg's neck and he played with her chest.

Real Squiggy moved his other hand onto real Shirley's chest, his first time that day of making a move without her specifically leading him into it. But she was not in the mood to object.

....

Normally, Squiggy did not hesitate to make a move on a girl, Shirley reclusive. With other girls, he'd learned it was best to press your luck as far as it could go, until and unless you got slapped. With Shirley, that usually didn't take long. Today though, especially as they watched themselves make out with each other and their friends, he kept having to rein himself in like he was both Roy Rogers and Tigger.

But his left hand couldn't understand why it couldn't share the fun that the right was having, so it joined the party. And Shirley didn't slap it away.

On the other boat, his other self was less cautious with Laverne's chest, as she necked with him and gave him a handjob, first in and then outside his briefs. Then she let go and her other hand gave his shoulder a _Go get her, Tiger!_ shove.

The Lenny watched with jealous anticipation, while the Shirley looked nervous but dazed. The two people with wide, innocent blue eyes clasped hands as if for reassurance. And then the Laverne positioned herself on Lenny so that a breast dangled over both friends' faces. The Lenny eagerly clamped his mouth onto his share, while the Shirley was shyer but did kiss the fun-bag she was offered.

She couldn't see, as real Shirley obviously could, that Squiggy position himself between her spread legs, but she could obviously feel it, and her legs widened and then embraced his hips. He held his rod in one hand and rubbed it against her clit, before teasing her mouth of the south. He didn't enter her immediately, eager as his face was, as hard as his rod was.

Then the Laverne whispered something in the Lenny's ear that made him scoot up and rest his head against the side of the swan. She aligned her head with Shirley's and kissed her on the lips again, as she aligned her crotch with Lenny's. And then her cunt engolfed Len's cock. Len's face went through its usual parade of emotions.

The Squiggy carefully eased his way in, his face showing the strain of holding back but also the care he genuinely felt for Shirley and her intactness. Most people didn't realize that Squiggy, much as he enjoyed taking virginity, was very careful about how he took it. He didn't just push his way in, like he might've with a girl like Laverne. This Shirley was obviously still a virgin, despite her eagerness to experiment, and he wanted to make this as good as he could for her. And Laverne whispered something in Shirley's ear and tenderly stroked her hair, which was so sweet that even Squiggy's hard heart was touched.

Lenny said something that made Shirley nod and, even though she gritted her teeth a little at what was probably the cherry-popping, she then reached out and teased Squiggy's hair-worm.

He lowered his head and kissed a cheek of both girls. Shirley stroked his back and nodded again.

Then Laverne started riding Lenny, who silently gasped and called out her name. Squiggy pushed slowly in and out of Shirley.

Real Shirley flinched at the trickle of dark red on a silver cushion.

"I'm sorry," real Squiggy whispered, and he was not someone who apologized.

"It's not real," real Shirley said, then turned her head and kissed him softly on the lips.

They kissed off and on, sometimes taking breaks to watch the kissing, touching, and fucking in the mirror. He hugged Shirley from behind, knowing she would be able to feel his impatient hard-on through the overalls, but not rubbing it against her sundress. His hands continued to cup and tease her tits. She was so soft, so soft, so soft everywhere, it nearly broke his heart. He almost felt like he would propose to her even if they didn't go all the way in reality. It was like he'd been Kosnowskied or somethin'.

The Shirley didn't seem to come when everyone else did, which made actual Squiggy say, "I'm sorry it wasn't better."

"My first time, and in a swan boat, and she did look happy," actual Shirley said.

"Still, that must be frustrating," he said, absent-mindedly rubbing her swollen nipples.

"For her or me?" she asked, in a combination of shy nervousness and coy teasing.

His brain had another minor meltdown.


	9. Eight Days a Week

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Hold me, love me, hold me, love me  
> I ain't got nothing but love, Babe  
> Eight days a week"
> 
> —The Beatles, late 1964

Squiggy coughed and quietly said, "Look, Shirl, I really like makin' out wicha, but we probably shouldn't go all the way."

She didn't laugh, although she'd never imagined him saying such a thing to her. "How far do you think we should go tonight?"

"Dry humpin'?"

She almost laughed at the Squigginess of his answer. And yet, it felt right. Although she'd been both touched and aroused by the tenderness of both Squiggys during her other self's deflowering, she still had no wish to lose her virginity in a swan boat. And yet, this did feel like one of the rare occasions when even voe-dee-oh might not be enough.

"And how exactly would that work?"

He let go. "You can stay dressed below the waist, but I won't."

"OK." She still didn't fully understand, but it sounded safe enough.

He kissed her cheek and then let go and backed away. It sounded like he was unfastening and then lowering the front of his overalls. She wondered what sort of underwear he was wearing. Even though she could still see him naked in the magic mirror, that wasn't the same thing. Reality was much more serious.

"Should I sit on your lap?" That had worked for Laverne and Lenny.

"Nah, just lean back into me with your legs spread."

She did and she could feel his erection press into her bottom and then slide under her. Even with her two layers of clothing, it still felt intense.

She closed her eyes, just feeling his scrawny body against her, his arms wrapped around her chest.

She expected him to say something about this, but instead he said, "Hm, the mirror's gone."

She opened her eyes again and faced a forgettable pastel wall. "Can you let go for a minute? I don't want you to stain my dress."

"I'll pull away before I come."

"Thank you but Laverne once told me there's um."

"Precum? Yeah." He let go.

She was blushing a bunch, but she still raised her skirt to her waist, so that the sundress was mostly just covering her stomach.

"God, woman, I swear!" And then he swore.

She shushed him as she settled back against him, his stiff manhood right next to her panties. She knew what she and Squiggy would look like making love, and now she could almost feel it.

She leaned against his hairy chest and his arms went around her again, but hugging, not fondling. He carefully thrust against her moist panties.

"You're so sexy, Shirl," he breathed.

Laverne was the sexy one. Shirley was cuter and classier, except to Lenny of course. But she wasn't going to argue when Squiggy's lust for her was so apparent.

"Thank you," she whispered. "You're very...passionate." She meant that, because, although there were ways that he was a very deadpan man, like how he observed that Buck "must've really had to go" when the faux-Arizonan blew up the men's room at the Pizza Bowl, Squiggy was also a bundle of intensity sometimes.

"You stir my passions," he said as he thrust against her.

She giggled a little but then thrust back.

"Mmmgrrrr!"

"Oh my, oh oh!"

And coherent conversation fell by the wayside.

....

Squiggy really really really wanted to be inside her, but he was not one to look a gift horse in the ear. He was as close to fucking Shirley as he'd probably get for a long time, and he wouldn't have her blood on his hands by actually defluoriding her. And he could feel how wet and open she was on the other side of the panties, and her tits were heaving as her breath quickened. So, you know, he was happy to settle for this.

They necked a bit but mostly she faced forward and kept the hem of her skirt up as they rubbed together, and he could feel himself digging deeper into her groove, without technically penetrating her. He squeezed her breasts and went to town as much as he could against her surprisingly compliable body. She seemed nervous but eager and had her own rhythms that he factored in.

They both tried to be quiet, but it wasn't easy, especially the closer they got to coming. He figuredly patted himself on the back when she got there first.

"Oh, Squiggy, I, oh, you're so, you make my body feel, oh gosh!"

"Yeah, just, oh, wow, you're dunking my dick!"

"Shhhhooot!"

She gushed and trembled and he took a moment to feel her feelings, although he wasn't at all the sappy empathetic fool that Len was. Then he put his hand down the front of her panties and rubbed her pleasure button so that she could come again before the first organism died down. And she was still coming when he did.

"YES, BE MY WOMAN!" he shouted, making her slap his arm. "Sorry," he whispered when he caught his breath.

Then a light flashed, but it wasn't a sign that the tunnel was coming to an end.

"Say cheese!" Laverne teased and Lenny chortled.


	10. All Day and All of the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I believe that you and me last forever  
> Oh yeah, all day and nighttime yours, leave me never"
> 
> —The Kinks, 1965

Shirley glared at the two grinning faces peering over the back of the golden seat. She didn't really blame Lenny, the born sidekick who was always going to follow a stronger person, herself included. And he wasn't the one with the camera. "Laverne DeFazio, I'm going to strangle you!"

"Relax, Shirl. I ran out of film in the baby animal barn "

"Can we have some privacy, Leonard?" Squiggy said, summoning all his dignity.

"If you wanted privacy, Andrew, you shouldn't have woken me out of a sound sleep."

"What are you doin' fallin' asleep in a swan?"

Lenny's smile turned moony yet proud. "I was with Laverne, Squig," he said, like he'd been to the Taj Mahal. "And the boat was rockin' us to sleep."

"Even before you two started rockin' it," Laverne teased.

Shirley glared at her again, so Laverne yanked Lenny's short sleeve. The two of them faced front again.

As Shirley slid away from Squiggy and fixed her bra and sundress, she wondered how long their friends had slept on the front seat. Had they missed the magic mirror mirage? They certainly weren't acting like they'd seen it, and even if they'd been awake, their heads were facing the wrong direction lying down.

And hopefully they hadn't seen or heard too much of her makeout with Squiggy. She had sworn them to secrecy, but they apparently felt free to talk about what had happened on this boat, if no one else was around.

"Hey, where are the other boats?" Lenny asked, right before their swan sailed through the exit.

....

Squiggy wasn't embarrassed that Lenny and Laverne had caught him in the act of coming. Lenny had seen it before, and it wasn't like Squiggy hadn't just seen two versions of Laverne going wild. But he felt bad for Shirley's sake. Then again, maybe it was just as well they interrupted, before Squiggy irprovokingly committed himself to Shirley.

He tucked himself back into his briefs and overalls. He fastened the buttons and hooks of the ladder, thinking of how he would've worn something different if he'd known. He had a vision of his alternate self's outfit and considered it myronic to wear all black in what was a climate tropical enough for palm trees.

When Lenny asked about the other boats, Squiggy wondered where to start. He had the feeling Len and Laverne had slept right through the mirror orgy.

Before Squiggy could reply, the swan exited the tunnel. There were no flashing lights, and in fact the swan seemed to be going into greater darkness.

Now Lenny's unanswerable question was "Why is it night?"

They were outside and the sky was black but filled with stars, as it sometimes is out in the country. That is, if they were still out in the country.

"Why are we on a lake?" Laverne asked, looking down instead of up.

"Swan Lake?" Lenny guessed.

"It must be Oconomowoc Lake," Shirley said, and she got out the brochure, as if it would explain the weirdest tunnel of love Squiggy had ever encountered.

"Where's the fair?" Lenny asked, getting to his feet for a better look. His pale ass glowed in the moonlight.

"LEN-NY!" three panicked voices called out, and Laverne reached out for him.

Their lanky friend flailed and of course, of course he knocked the boat over, the swan dumping them all out into the lake. Squiggy couldn't even be furious, because it was typical Kosnowski. Not that he wasn't annoyed, especially when he remembered he hadn't quite finished his popcorn.

He went under and then bobbed to the surface. He spotted land not too far off and paddled towards it. It didn't occur to him to try to rescue Shirley until he heard Laverne saying, "Len, quit grabbin' me! I'm a better swimmer than you!"

Lenny looked shag-grinned and then dived down for her panties, the ones she apparently still wasn't wearin'. "Here!" he cried triumphantly when he came back up, holding them like they was the sword Excalibrated or somethin'.

"My hero," Laverne said, well not drily, as she grabbed them out of his hand. She managed to slip them on while swimmin' in place and tellin' Lenny, "Now go get my camera."

He dived under again, but Shirley hauled him up to the surface by the back of his T-shirt and snapped, "Forget the goddamn camera!"

The other three gasped at her swearing.

"Shirl, you said...!" Lenny whispered in disbelief.

"Hush, Leonard, and put on your cow pants," she said, holding them out to him.

"Thanks, Shirl, but I can't dress and swim at the same time."

Squiggy was about to point out that the cow trousers had been left back in the girls' apartment, but he felt like they shouldn't be yammering on in the middle of a lake. He struck out for the shore alone.

....

Shirley watched in disbelief as Laverne grabbed the cow pants out of her hands and dived under to dress Lenny. He giggled and blushed and shot apologetic looks at Shirley, who was wondering what exactly Laverne was doing down there. Then Laverne's no longer teased hair broke the surface and she waved and said, "Come on, this way!"

"Land ahoy!" Lenny called out.

The three of them swam towards the shore, but Squiggy had a head start. Luckily, it wasn't too far. The water was ice-cold, which was a shock to the system after the heat of their fair wanderings and the stuffy tunnel. But it was of course not the only the only shock Shirley had had that day, nor the last.

It wasn't until they reached dry land that Shirley thought to hiss, "Vernie, you're practically naked!"

Laverne looked down and said, "I've still got my sandals and my panties."

Squiggy undid his overalls again but this time he stripped off his plaid shirt. He handed it to Laverne and said, "Here, make a skirt out of this or somethin'."

Laverne looked surprised at Squiggy's chivalry, while Lenny looked jealous, although his white T-shirt wouldn't have made much of a skirt. They couldn't possibly have seen Squiggy's fantasy mirror, where the lines among the four of them blurred so much. Shirley blushed at the memory of the breastplay with the Laverne and deliberately looked away from her best friend's real exposed chest.

"Oh, so we're all overcome with modesty now, are we?" Laverne said, and it sounded like she was getting to her feet.

"Pinky swear," Shirley reminded her.

"We can talk about it when it's just us, Shirl. I'm not runnin' to tell Carmine when we get back to Milwaukee."

"Thank you," Squiggy said quietly.

Laverne came around and stood in front of Shirley, wearing her sandals, her panties, the short plaid "skirt," and her refastened halter top. "Look, Shirl, somethin' crazy is goin' on here and I don't just mean about us foolin' around with the boys."

"Why is that crazy?" Lenny asked, sounding hurt, poor thing.

"Not now, Len."

"It's late," Squiggy said. "We should head back to the truck."

Shirley had somehow held on to the brochure, even when she rescued the cow pants. It was soaking wet but she could still read the map. She pointed and said, "The parking lot is this way."

....

The first clue they had that more than maybe twelve hours had passed was when they got to the parking lot, which was really just a field, and the fair was gone: every barn, every tent, every corndog stand. At least the truck was still there. It looked dusty, even though Squiggy had made Lenny wash it for their outing.

Lenny found a pair of his work pants inside and loaned them to Laverne, who for some reason could fit into Lenny's clothes perfectly, and vice reversa. She thanked him and changed in the back of the truck. Lenny didn't even bother to spy on her, but there wasn't really a need anymore. She returned Squiggy's plaid shirt afterwards and he put it back on. Lenny had lost his underwear in the lake, but he could go commandant until they got home.

"Aren't ya glad we just dry-humped?" Squiggy whispered to Shirley, who of course blushed.

They didn't otherwise talk about it, then or for a long while after.

Lenny drove and Squiggy put on the heater and the radio, to dry out their clothes and hair a little and to avoid conferscation. Well, the girls rode in the back and whispered whatever girl-talk they had to cover. Oconomowoc was only half an hour from Milwaukee, although it felt like another world.

Squiggy didn't recognize any of the songs playin', but it was probably local stuff from Podunkville. He changed stations and came across the news.

"I'm sad to report that Trigger, the faithful palomino companion of Roy Rogers, is dead of natural causes."

"Oh no!" Shirley gasped in horror. She loved animals, especially horses.

"Born on the Fourth of July in 1934, Trigger would've turned thirty-one tomorrow."

"Hey, Squig?"

"Shut up, Len."

"The stallion, also known as Golden Cloud, was never put to stud and has no descendants, although he leaves millions of human mourners the world over."

Shirley burst into tears and distracted Lenny from the math that made his forehead wrinkle. But Squiggy kept puzzling over it, and when he looked in the back of the truck, Laverne met his eyes, even as she patted Shirley's back and let her best friend cry on her shoulder. Her green orbs seemed to be askin', _What the hell is goin' on here?_

He didn't get any further clues from the radio, but there were a lot of American flags out on the way home.

When they arrived at 730 Knapp Street, the Big Ragoo was sitting on the stoop and he demanded, "Why the hell are you so late?"


	11. All You Need Is Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Nothing you can make that can't be made  
> No one you can save that can't be saved  
> Nothing you can do, but you can learn how to be you in time"
> 
> —The Beatles, the Summer of Love

It was the summer of 1967 and Shirley was at a fair for the first time in five years. After what happened at the Waukesha County Fair, she definitely hadn't wanted to go with Laverne and the boys again. And she would've felt funny going with Carmine, considering how he reacted when they got home.

But it was different with Walter. Everything was different.

"Have you considered that your love of animals is a misplaced maternal instinct?"

She stopped cooing at the baby bunnies. Walter was an army medic, not a psychologist, but he spoke with gentle authority. So instead of saying that she thought she would adore animals her whole life, even after she became a mother someday, she quietly answered, "No, I haven't."

Before he could respond to her reply, she heard the crackly voice of someone over the PA system: "Paging Dr. Walter Meeney. Will Dr. Meeney please report to the first aid tent?"

He looked mildly surprised that, with all the people at the LA County Fair, he was singled out like this. Then his expression turned a little smug. "Sorry, Darling, duty calls."

She managed to say, "You go ahead, Sweetie, I'll wait here."

He smiled and kissed her cheek. He wasn't much taller than her, or Carmine. Or Squiggy.

Walter had already turned away by the time that random thought popped into her head. She waited until he left the barn before she found a chair in a relatively quiet corner. The heat was getting to her and she had to collect her thoughts.

She couldn't let herself think directly about what happened in and around Oconomowoc. But she couldn't help flashing back to the night, apparently July 3, 1965, when she, Laverne, and the boys had returned damp but clean from the sparkling waters of the lake that the swan had dropped them into, due to Lenny's clumsiness.

Carmine was sitting on the front stoop when the boys' truck pulled up. He shouted, ""Why the hell are you so late?" Obviously, his dance recital had been over for quite some time.

"Um, is my pop upset?"

"Laverne, I'm not gonna call all the way to California to rat you out for staying out half the night."

"California?" Laverne mouthed.

Carmine hadn't noticed, because he'd turned to Shirley. "Angel Face, you said you were just gonna see _Mothra vs. Godzilla_."

"It was a whole _Godzilla_ marathon," Squiggy improvised with a straight face.

"Uh, yeah, eighteen straight hours of monsters in Tohoscope," Lenny lied, less glibly.

"Oh. And did it rain in the theater?"

"That's from the contest," Laverne supplied.

"Contest?"

"Yeah, they invited people onstage to reenact the climactic battle of _Godzilla on Monster Island_."

"It was a hell of a climax!" Lenny murmured with shining eyes.

"You were fighting like a monster, Shirl?" Carmine sounded equally surprised and amused.

"Our team came in fourth," she said in what she hoped came across as standard embarrassment.

He chuckled and gave her a quick hug. She hoped she didn't smell of Squiggy. "Well, as long as you had fun."

"Best day and night of my life!" proclaimed poor Lenny.

It was late enough to bid goodnight to all three men, after first promising to watch the fireworks with Carmine the next night. He kissed Shirley goodnight. The boys grabbed and kissed Laverne, like they had before the bus trip to New York, and other times.

Carmine yanked them off Laverne then shook his head. "When are you guys gonna grow up?"

Shirley managed not to say that they all seemed to have aged three years in a few hours.

She and Laverne of course did not go to sleep. They scoured the apartment for clues. Newspapers, magazines, bills, paystubs, letters from Frank and Edna DeFazio, etc. And of course their wardrobe, all different than when they left, but Laverne's as chockful of L's as ever.

Laverne sank onto her bed, clutching a dress with a knee-length hem. "Shirl, how did this happen?"

"The tunnel," Shirley mumbled against Boo Boo Kitty's soft black head.

"OK, let's say the swan was some sort of time machine, activated by us fooling around with the boys. Why doesn't anyone from my pop and Carmine to the brewery and the phone company seem to realize we've been gone all this time?"

"I don't know, Vernie, I just don't know."

They never did figure it out, and mostly they just tried to blend in when their friends reminisced about the gap years. This was especially hard when Terry or whoever asked, "Where were you when you heard President Kennedy was shot?" They definitely couldn't say that they were at the beauty parlor, getting more modern hairdos. Shirley usually just burst into tears, but Laverne had an elaborate and yet convincing story of "the day we'll never forget."

They were still getting their bearings when Shotz shut down the entire bottle-capping department because of automation. There they were at "twenty-seven," with no real future in Milwaukee. So they moved out to California and the boys went with them. Frank and Edna had apparently left a couple months before, to run a Cowboy Bill's Western-themed fast food franchise. Carmine followed a couple months later, selling his dance studio and hoping to make it big in Hollywood.

For two years in Burbank, the girls had tried to adapt. Times had changed so quickly, for them more than anyone. But, although Shirley had loosened up in some ways, she still hoped to lose her virginity on her wedding night with a doctor husband.

Not necessarily Walter. On paper, he looked good, but he just didn't give her goosebumps. Still, they hadn't been dating long and she wasn't in any hurry, even if she was, as her mother reminded her in weekly phone calls and monthly visits, "pushing thirty."

The boys had adjusted remarkably well to all the upheaval, although there were still moments, less now than in the first year after the swan boat, when Lenny looked wistfully at Laverne when Vernie wasn't looking. In some ways, the four of them had gone back to the terms they were on in the Spring of '62, but Shirley could no longer pretend to be revolted by Squiggy, even when she said he was the worst-looking person in an admittedly mostly gorgeous group of friends.

They nearly never brought up the Tunnel of Love, except for the glaring exception of the time that Lenny and Squiggy were on _The Dating Game_. When Squiggy got the question about his "wildest date," Lenny whispered something to him, and Squiggy launched into a story about going to an amusement park. That part was a lie, because Shirley had never been to an amusement park with the boys. (They left her out when Laverne went job-hunting at Disneyland, which Shirley still hadn't gotten over almost two years later.) Squiggy said that their dates were "two lovely ladies, whose initials are Laverne DeFazio and Shirley Feeney." When Squiggy said that LDF and SF "dragged them into the Tunnel of Love," Lenny grinned and shook his index finger, like he was playfully scolding, "You naughty girls!" Squiggy didn't get too graphic (no cuckoo-bleeps like for the "honey" answer), but he said they had a great time and "by the time we got out, well, all of us was just molded into one heaving mound of flesh."

That was a lie, too, at least for the two couples in their swan, although the mirror foursome had achieved that. Laverne still didn't know about that part, and Shirley was not about to tell her. Squiggy had obviously told Lenny by then.

Luckily, Carmine assumed it was just the guys making up stories, like usual. As for Sonny, Laverne's boyfriend of the time, he and Laverne hadn't been dating long and he thought Laverne was perfect and he hardly knew the boys. Laverne was able to say that Squiggy was lying and half-believe it, and of course Shirley had an honest face.

When Shirley scolded Squiggy later, he said, "I was under hot studious lights and my brain was meltin'. Plus, I called you lovely, so why are you complainin'?" He honestly didn't get it.

Lenny said, "Sorry, Shirl, but it really was the wildest date either of us have ever been on, so it was the first thing that sprang."

That was the last time Shirley ever discussed it with anyone, and obviously she was not going to confess it to her future husband, whether or not he was Walter. She still retained her technical virginity, and her vision in the tunnel mirror was clearly never going to come true.

So she'd felt secure when she purchased a knee-length gray dress with giant daisies on it, and wore it to the LA County Fair with matching gray pumps and handbag. How was she to know that Squiggy had recently purchased a black Beatles cap, which he'd wear as part of a whole black ensemble? Or that Laverne had turned into a hippie since Shirley left the apartment that morning and was now wearing a very short tie-die purple miniskirt and a peace necklace? Lenny looked much the way he usually did, but when Shirley's three friends rushed into the baby animal barn, he was indeed in a blue Hawaiian shirt, faded blue jeans, and torn blue sneakers.

"Fate has a twisted sense of humor," she informed the piglet to her left.


	12. Summertime Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Sometimes I wonder  
> What I'm a-gonna do  
> But there ain't no cure  
> For the summertime blues"
> 
> —Eddie Cochran in 1958, Blue Cheer in '68

"God, I really need some dope!" Laverne muttered one Saturday morning about halfway between the assassination of RFK and the Democratic Convention in Chicago.

She had just enough time to hide the rolling papers and special spice jar in the pockets of her fringed jacket before the boys burst in the front door. After eleven and a half years, it was a little predictable.

"Hello."

"Hey, Laverne, we heard the bad news."

She frowned. "About my layoff or my breakup?"

"Both," Squiggy said, helping himself to the potato chips she'd been planning to have when the munchies set in.

"Things will get better, Laverne, I swear."

She shook her head. "I don't know, Len, this past year, my whole life in some ways..., well, don't you guys have regrets?"

"Regrets?" Squiggy said, as he reached for the ketchup. "I've had a few."

"You wanna know what my biggest regret is?" Lenny asked.

She was afraid it would be about her, but she took the bait. "What?"

"We never took Shirley to Disneyland, and now it's too late."

"Lenny, she's married, not dead."

"Same difference," Squiggy said, hitting the ketchup bottle over the chip bowl.

"Let me do that," she said, not wanting to have to clean up after him.

He handed over the bottle and said, "Even if she visits, she'll have Dr. Meaning along, and all the little Meanings."

Shirley's rabbit test was a false positive, but she didn't find that out until after she moved to Germany with her new husband. In her most recent letter, she told Laverne that she still had hopes of children, but there hadn't been even another skipped period since the Fall.

Laverne was about to hit the bottle just right when Lenny said, "We still owe you some rides, Laverne."

He didn't say it suggestively, but she was taken back about a decade, to when the boys showed up to her apartment with a pizza and a roll of tickets to the Tunnel of Love. They invited her and Shirley, who wasn't even home, because of an unscrupulous middle manager. But Laverne wasn't that hard up back then.

A few years later, well, that wasn't about desperation. It was to do with losing Randy, she knew that now. Not exactly a rebound thing, because it wasn't like he dumped her. But Lenny was there and he was cute and sweet and funny, and seemingly indestructible. The guy fell off roofs and down stairs, and once out a window, and he always survived.

A kiss, and then, "Len, how can we do this without you getting hurt?"

"It's just a crick in my throat," he'd said rubbing the part of his neck where she really wanted to give him a hickey, and unconsciously showing off the muscles in his arm and revealing his belly button when his white T-shirt rode up.

"Lenny."

"Look, I know you don't want anything serious right now, but we could just be friends who make out, if you want."

"And you'd be OK with that?"

He'd shrugged. "It beats being friends who don't make out."

So they'd made out a little by the time they visited the Oconomowoc Tunnel of Love. She honestly didn't expect to get past necking, not with chaperone Shirley along. It turned into a game, seeing how far she could take it, without Shirley stopping her. And, all right, she was really turned on by Lenny and the situation, including Squiggy trying not to react.

So she went crazy with and on Lenny, who was totally into it, of course. And then they both passed out, even though it was still morning.

Except they woke up to the sound of Shirley and Squiggy making out. Laverne was understandably surprised, but maybe they, even Shirley, got so excited watching the front seat action, they were inspired. It didn't sound like voe-dee-oh-doe, but it seemed to be hot and heavy.

And Laverne knew that Shirley would regret losing it to Squiggy in a swan boat. Laverne hadn't been a virgin, and she'd always been on better terms with Lenny than Shirley had with Squiggy. If Shirley genuinely wanted to give it up to Andrew Squiggman, it should be a more romantic time and place. Not to mention that even what seemed the world's longest tunnel of love had to come to an end sometime.

Laverne knew she needed to break the mood that she had set. She grabbed her camera from the floor and signalled to Lenny to not laugh and take away the element of surprise.

Anyway, it all could've been one crazy experience, with or without long-lasting consequences, especially since Laverne went on the Pill after Randy, but then it turned out that their swan was a time machine. And not like in the movies, where you show up years earlier or later and other people are surprised. Everyone, even Big Rosie Greenbaum, acted like they'd been there all along.

So under the circumstances, pursuing a relationship with Lenny, even a casual one, seemed like a bad idea. She was still incredibly fond of him, and they were more physical than they used to be, but they never made out again.

She definitely didn't expect Bachelor Number Two to encourage Bachelor Number Three to talk about it on national television. Squiggy made it sound like both less and more than it was. He left out the time travel but turned it into more of a group thing.

Well, that was Squiggy, always exaggerating, trying to make himself look like more of a stud. She was used to it by then.

"Yeah," he said now, "we said we'd pay for the rides at the fair and then we went on only one."

She set down the ketchup bottle. "Yeah, but you sure got your money's worth."

Both boys laughed, although Lenny blushed a little.

Laverne ended up heading to Disneyland with them, in her long purple tie-dye T-shirt, faded lavender bell-bottoms, purple sandals, peace-symbol necklace, and purple fringed jacket with special spice in the pocket.


	13. Time Has Come Today

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Now the time has come (Time)  
> There are things to realize (Time)  
> Time has come today (Time)  
> Time has come today (Time)"
> 
> —The Chambers Brothers, 1968

Laverne was so beautiful. Almost every day of his life for Lenny didn't know how many years, especially with losing three, he thought that. When she was bloated from too much junk food or from her womanly cycle. When she had the flu or broken body parts, including a broken heart. When she was dressed like a slob or looked like a queen. She was effing beautiful.

So if she wanted to go a little hippie, he was not gonna complain, especially not when it meant she didn't wear a bra half the time. It reminded him of when she didn't wear a bra under her halter top in Oconomowoc. Those beautiful tits had once been in his eyes and hands and mouth, and maybe someday they would be again.

The Kosnowskis were patient people. You had to be when you were banished Polish royalty. Lenny enjoyed instant gratisfaction as much as anyone, but Laverne was worth waiting for, again.

Not that he sat around just twiddling his pinkies. He dated, he fell in love a couple times, once mutantly. He sang songs, some of his own competition and some recovers. He lived his life, with her as a shining bacon of perfect imperfection, making him feel better about his own flaws.

And now in a world that felt like it had changed as much in the last three years as in the three they skipped, he was happy to try to bring a smile back to her face in the Happiest Place on Earth. He didn't even suggest they eat first, although Squiggy had dragged him over to Laverne's without breakfast and they hadn't even had catsup chips before they went out to the sadly ice-cream-less truck.

"Put away the Cocoa Puffs box, put on your shoes, and change your shirt," Squiggy had said, holding out Lenny's blue Hawaiian. "We're gonna pay an indolence call across the hall."

"We'll be black and blue," Lenny had observed, seeing that Squiggy had gone all out in his signature color, even borrowing Lenny's new used Beatles cap.

Squiggy shrugged and said, "It feels appropriate."

Lenny assumed his best friend meant because life had beat them up, especially Laverne, in the year since Shirley met Mr. Right, who wasn't Carmine or Squiggy or anyone who remembered her before braces.

Laverne was in purple, one of her signature colors, although she looked great in any color. He couldn't tell if she was wearing a bra because she had a fringed jacket over her tie-dye T-shirt, but he thought not.

"Where to first, Laverne?" Squiggy asked. Lenny thought of how he had let Shirley pick first back in Oconomowoc, but the balance was always different when it was the three of them without Shirley.

"Mr. Toad's Wild Ride," she said, and Lenny felt like she said it suggestively. Was she flirting with Squiggy, or remembering her wild swan ride with Lenny?

Last time at Disneyland, they took separate cars for this ride, because everyone wanted to drive, even though the cars were on a track and you couldn't really control them. It was a good metal floor for life.

This time the car that pulled up for Laverne was bigger than the rest but just as old-timey. She grinned and cried, "I call shotgun!"

Lenny and Squiggy looked at each other and nodded. Lenny would drive and Squiggy would take the rumba seat.

Nothing crazy happened when they went to Disneyland before. It was just a fun time for Lenny and his two best friends. And it wasn't like he expected to make out with Laverne at Disneyland. Well, he would love to, but it wouldn't be fair to Squiggy, who didn't have a date.

Lenny thought he knew this ride, but this time there was a part where they went through a tunnel and then emerged into what must've been the English countryside. Then the car gently rolled to a stop on the grassy bank of a stream.

"Um," Lenny said.

"Len, you broke the ride," Squiggy chided.

Lenny hoped he wouldn't have to pay for it.

Laverne jumped out of the car. "I know this place!"

"You know this place," Squiggy repeated.

Lenny looked around at the vivid but unreal colors, like they were in a cartoon while still being realistically proportioned and 3D. He knew it had to be from a Disney movie, but not necessarily _The Wind in the Wallows._

"Supercalifriggaudacious," Squiggy murmured.

Then Lenny got it. This was the place that Mary Poppins took Bert and the kids when they jumped into the sidewalk chalk drawing. They weren't at the carousel or the penguins' outdoor cafe, but it was the general area.

Laverne started spinning around like she was in another Julie Andrews movie and was gonna bust into singing that the hills were alive with the sound of music, even though there weren't any hills around.

Squiggy nudged his shoulder and said, "You carry the picnic basket and I'll get the blanket."

"Uh, OK." Lenny hadn't noticed either when he got into the car on the driver's side, right because it was English, but he'd mostly been looking at Laverne's emerging smile.

The two men got out of the car and Laverne helped Squiggy spread the plaid blanket on the ground as Lenny held the basket and tried not to think about her wearing Squiggy's farmer shirt as a miniskirt.

Then they all sat down, cross-legged in a circle, and Lenny opened up the basket. By then Lenny was starving, and Squiggy had just had a few potato chips.

There wasn't a lot of food in the basket, especially for three people, but Lenny wasn't going to look a gift horse in the foot.

"This is nice," Laverne said, waving a sausage roll and looking more relaxed than Lenny had seen her in a long time.

Lenny nodded and took another bite of his chicken drumstick, not wanting to say the wrong thing and spoil the mood.

Then Laverne reached into her jacket pocket and casually asked, "Hey, you guys want some?"

Squiggy looked at the little spice jar in her hand and said, "I don't like oregano."

Lenny stared as Laverne took out rolling papers. This was the one thing that Lenny was less innocent about than Squiggy, but he was still shocked. It was one thing to see pot at the recording sessions where Lenny picked up extra cash as a studio musician, but it was another to have a girl he still remembered covered in baby fat offer him grass. After the experience of crashing the London's Bridges party a couple years ago, Lenny had politely said no thank you to reefer, and he'd assumed Laverne had, too, particularly since she almost got married under the influence.

"You smuggled dope into Disneyland?" Lenny whispered.

She rolled her eyes as she rolled a joint. "Are we even still in Disneyland?"

He wasn't sure how to answer that. Then again, the Disney workers had let her in when she was dressed as a hippie, and that was odd in itself.

"I'll pass," Squiggy said. "You know it brings out my rage and paranoids."

Laverne knew darn well what it brought out in Lenny, but she didn't seem to fear the possibility that he would have trouble resisting running his hands all over her. She took out a lighter and lit the jay. She took a puff and then held the joint out to him enticingly. "Lenny?"

"Gas me," he breathed.

She smiled and put her lips an inch from his. He breathed in the Mary Jane and the Laverne. He felt like he would get equally high from both.

They didn't actually kiss. She just teased him by blowing smoke onto and into him. But he did stroke her face and her hair, feeling years roll forward and backward.

When the joint was gone, he hoped she would roll another, but instead she got to her feet and started dancing. He hummed something vaguely psychedelic and used the basket as a drum. "Dance with me, Len," she said as she kicked off her purple sandals.

It took all his now weakened self-control to say, "No, it ain't fair. Squiggy don't got a partner."

"I'm happy just to watch," Squiggy said, starting on Lenny's abandoned egg-and-cress sangwich.

So Lenny stumbled to his feet and put his hands on Laverne's rolling hips. As they danced, Squiggy sang "Itchycoo Park" deadpan with his mouth full.

Laverne put her mouth to Lenny's ear and whispered, "You wanna skinny-dip?"

He remembered plunging half-naked into Lake Oconomowoc, heavy dunking beyond what he'd offered her four years before, the time she said she was too hard up for the Tunnel of Love. He nuzzled her neck and said, "That would really be unfair to Squiggy."

She nodded and then danced away from him. She stripped off her purple-striped bellbottoms and fringed jacket, turning her T-shirt into a very short miniskirt. And, yes, she was definitely bra-less. Then she waded into the stream, as far as her great knees, laughing and splashing.

Lenny sank to his own knees on the blanket. "Squig, you gotta tell her!" he whispered urgently.

"Me? I'm not the one in love with her."

"No, about the magic mirror!"

"You never told her?"

"Nah, and I don't think Shirley did neither. She don't act like she knows."

"But I told Mr. and Mrs. America and all the sheep at sea."

"She must've figured you made up the 'heaving mound' part."

Squiggy chewed on that and a meat pie. "Yeah, OK, I think it's time we had that little talk."


	14. Reach Out of the Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I think it's so groovy now  
> That people are finally getting together  
> I thinks it's so wonderful and how  
> That people are finally getting together"
> 
> —Friend & Lover, 1968

Laverne felt giddy from Disneyland, pot, flirtation, and maybe magic. She wasn't sure what was going to happen next, but she felt more willing to believe in a future. For the moment, she just enjoyed the clear water flowing around her bare legs.

"Hey, Laverne, can you come over here?"

"Sure, Squig." She waded out and back to the picnic blanket. She knelt by the basket and grabbed a Scotch egg, which her ex-boyfriend Mike, the fashion photographer, had once explained to her was Scottish but didn't contain scotch whiskey. "What's up?" With Squiggy, it could be anything. He was predictable in his unpredictability.

"Remember when you and Lenny fell asleep in the swan?"

"Uh, yeah." Was he gonna claim he'd gone all the way with Shirley? Should she believe him?

"Well, there was this sort of funhouse mirror on the wall, very fun." He said it suggestively, but Lenny didn't bite his hand. In fact, Lenny looked nervous and concerned. He obviously knew what Squiggy was gonna say.

"What did it show you?"

"It wasn't just me. I could tell Shirl saw it, too."

"What was it?"

"The four of us, together, very together."

"In a swan boat?"

"The front seat turned around and made a sort of bed."

"And we were all 'in bed together'?"

"Yeah. You want details?"

"Not yet. I wanna know why you're telling me now."

"It feels like the right time. And there's a part that I never told Lenny."

They both stared at Squiggy.

....

Lenny's friendship with Squiggy was both complex and simplex. They were friends from the first day they met and, except for some fights, got along perfectly. But Lenny was very open with the people he cared about, while Squiggy started keeping secrets, even from his best friend, the day his old man ran out on the family.

Lenny had assumed Squiggy had told him everything about the mirror vision, or whatever it was. (Decades later, when Lenny's grandchildren would make him read _Harry Potter,_ he'd gasp at the Mirror of Erised, because hadn't the tunnel's mirror shown what Squiggy most desired? And maybe what Shirley desired, too, since she'd also seen something reflected there.)

What had Squiggy left out? Had the two of them fooled around a little, like Squiggy did with Laverne, and the girls did with each other? Or had Lenny and Shirley done more than the pretty innocent kissing and touching that Squig reported?

"Before we got to the mirror, there was a painting. The four of us was at a fair, someplace with palm trees."

"California?" Laverne guessed.

"I think so, though I didn't know it at the time. And we was wearin' clothes I'd never seen before, the same clothes we was about to take off each other in the mirror. The same clothes we're wearin' now."

"You said Laverne was wearing a minidress and you didn't tell me it was purple."

Squiggy shook his head. "I didn't say minidress. I didn't know what that was in '62. I said very short dress."

Now Lenny shook his head. "My point is you didn't say what colors we was all wearin', or any details really, except that Laverne was wearin' a Three-Slice Special necklace and she wasn't wearin' a bra, again." Then he blushed, thinking of what the three of them did to Laverne's boobs.

"I didn't think it mattered, until the day I first saw Shirl's gray dress with the big daisies. I mean in real life."

Laverne nodded. "She bought that dress around the time she first started dating Walter."

"Yeah, and I wondered if the stuff in the mirror would come true."

"Well, obviously it didn't," Laverne said irritably, "because she still married him, which I don't think she'd have done if she fooled around with the three of us. Which she didn't. And it's not like she's gonna come back from Germany just to have a swan-boat foursome."

"Yeah," Lenny whispered, "you said you took her virginity. Um, blood and everything." He shot an apologetic look at Laverne for getting graphic.

Squiggy shrugged. "Maybe her Aunt Flo had the painters in. Anyway, my point is, it could've been a coinciding dress, but then last weekend I noticed Laverne was wearin' this tie-dye T-shirt and peace necklace. Oh, and the sandals." He pointed at the purple shoes lying in the grass. (The nonsmokable kind of grass.)

Laverne nodded slowly. "And so you made sure that today you boys were wearing what you were wearing in the painting and the dream, just in case?"

"Yeah, as Carmine was singin' over the phone last month, when the moon is in the Seventh House of Pancakes and Jupiter maligns with Mars...."

"Wait, you're basing this off astrology?" Laverne said in disbelief, as if that was the most amazing part of all.

"Look, you know I'm the biggest cyanide on this planet, any planet."

"Cynic?"

"Yeah. But you was right, three or six years ago, somethin' weird happened to us in that tunnel and we're still feelin' the effects. But, I think we can reverse it a little."

"Road trip to Oconomowoc, whoo-hoo," she said flatly.

Lenny looked uncertainly at the sixty-year-old car parked a few yards away. "You want me to drive from whatever dimension this is all the way to Wisconsin, on the wrong side of the road?"

"Nah, just from Disneyland to some fair in Southern California. Oh, and one year into the past."

"I don't think my license covers that."

Laverne said, "You want to go back to when she was dating Walter, don't you?"

Squiggy nodded. "That's when she had that dress. And it's mostly this last year that's been rough "

"And then what? You've taken her virginity and she doesn't give it to Walter on their wedding night. And then are you gonna marry her?"

Lenny giggled because of the after-effects of the reefer gas and the ridiculosity of this discussion. "Yeah, Squig, would you do the decent thing?"

Squiggy sighed impatiently. "I'll do what I have to do. The question is, will you two?"

"Uh, what do you want us to do?" Lenny asked nervously. He knew what he needed to do in the Tunnel of Love in California's Summer of Love, but how were they supposed to get there?

"Hold on a minute," Laverne said, "how do you know that whatever we do would send us a year back in time? It could be longer than that, or forward. If it even works at all."

"I know it works because I saw us in the mirror," Squiggy said impatiently.

"So you say."

"Fine, we'll get back in the car and go home and you can write a letter to Shirley asking if I'm lying."

Laverne hesitated and then repeated Lenny's last question, "What do you want us to do?"


	15. Stoned Soul Picnic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Red yellow honey, sassafras and moonshine, moonshine  
> Stoned soul, yeah"
> 
> —The 5th Dimension, 1968

The giddiness had faded, replaced by a combination of skepticism, hope, and nervousness. Laverne remembered the boys on _The Dating Game,_ how they didn't act like Squiggy was exaggerating. Maybe Squiggy had had a vision in the Oconomowoc tunnel, and maybe the them in it somehow had their clothes from this present. Her peace necklace was especially surprising, because Squiggy wouldn't have known what that symbol meant back in '62, or even in '65, by which point he must've told Lenny about the mirror. And one thing Laverne knew was that Lenny was incapable of lying, especially to her.

And it wasn't as if she had no experience with time travel. She just wasn't sure it was something they could control. That didn't mean she wasn't curious about his plan. She'd always been fascinated by the strange twists of Squiggy's mind.

He cleared his throat. "Well, I do think we should get back in the car. I was hoping we'd get a swan boat, maybe coming downstream, but I guess that's only in tunnels of love."

"So that's it? We just have to sit in the car?"

"Of course not, or we'd already be at the fair with Shirley."

Laverne's pot fog was mostly cleared off by then and she suddenly gasped at a memory. "Shirley went to the LA County Fair with Walter!"

"Did she wear the daisy dress?"

"I wouldn't swear to it, but she could've." Laverne started to believe in this a little more. Which meant that she might be heading towards a little orgy, which in turn, probably meant more time travel. She wasn't sure how she felt about either.

If this actually worked, how would it work? Going all the way and doing oral with Lenny, plus Shirley and Squiggy rubbing together with Shirley's underwear at least on, had brought them to the same place (Oconomowoc) but three years in the future. Whatever the three of them were about to do was supposed to take them one year back and from Anaheim to LA. But if they all were all four "very together" how far would they go?

It would have to be more than three years, but into the future or the past? And why had the four of them bothered? Why not just stay in '67? Then again, if they had, there would've been two each of the three of them, and one Shirley. Wouldn't she run into the '67 Laverne? As the former '67 Laverne, she knew she'd never run into her current self, or any other selves. There was the estranged wife of one of Shirley's California boyfriends, a woman who looked like a blonde version of Shirley, but she had a kid of about ten, so that would've required some very complicated time travel.

Laverne also of course wondered how far they would go sexually. Squiggy had told _The Dating Game_ studio and home audiences that the four of them had turned into "one heaving mound of flesh," but what did that actually mean? And would the four of them have to do in reality what the mirror showed to '62 Shirley and Squiggy?

She had time to think about all this, with her pot-addled mind, because Squiggy didn't say anything else for awhile but just sat there calmly eating, while Lenny looked around like he was hoping Mary Poppins was going to fly out of the bright blue sky with her umbrella and solve their problems with cool logic and meticulous magic.

Then Squiggy swallowed and calmly said, "I think we all have to get back in the car and Lenny has to picnic at the Lazy Y again."

They both stared at him and probably would've done spit-takes if they'd been drinking. (The picnic basket did not provide beverages, although she supposed the stream was pure enough to drink.) It had been three (or six) years since she and Lenny went down on each other, which wasn't something that had happened with many of her actual boyfriends. She had licked Lenny just to tease him, and the back-seat watchers, but Lenny had given her a thorough tongue-bath after they went all the way. She'd never forgotten it, and it had certainly made her fonder than ever of him, although that didn't mean she thought they should repeat even that part of the experience.

Lenny was blushing but he whispered, "OK." That was Lenny. You didn't have to explain everything to him to get him to agree to a plan, and considering his enthusiasm in Oconomowoc, he probably hadn't forgotten the taste of her in three (or six) years.

"Why that?" Laverne asked. Not that it was the worst suggestion, but she was curious why Squiggy would choose something that he didn't get any direct benefit out of, unless you counted the possibility of time travel.

Squiggy sighed like it should've been obvious. "If I'm gonna be inside Shirley and Lenny's gonna be inside you last summer, you can't go pleasuring us now."

It wasn't just being a little stoned that made that tricky to parse. He was talking about the near future, maybe less than an hour from then, but it would happen about a year ago. And in the immediate future, the almost present, he didn't want her touching their sticks because those had to be saved for voe-dee-oh-pea-queue. And Squiggy didn't expect to be inside her, or Lenny inside Shirley, however much the two "couples" had crossed over to become one mound.

"And if it doesn't work? I mean right now, which means it can't work in '67 either."

Squiggy shrugged. "Then you get a free carpet-munching. Don't be difficult, Woman."

She laughed and shook her head. She could've suggested they just get back in the car and forget the whole thing, but he was right in his warped way. And she and Lenny had enjoyed it last time, so why not? "Let me get my pants, jacket, and sandals in case we're back in Disneyland at the end of this ride."

She didn't say "ride" suggestively, although she would've been perfectly justified in doing so, but Lenny blushed again and mumbled, "Let me get some water." He went to the edge of the stream and cupped his hands. He not only drank deeply but splashed some on his face, like he was trying to wake up from a crazy dream.

"You want me to pinch you, Laverne?" Squiggy offered.

"No, that's OK. If it's a dream, I'll find out soon enough."

"I just meant I'd like to pinch you."

She patted his Beatles cap. "Save it for '67."

He nodded and started packing up the picnic leftovers. He took the basket to the car, while Laverne brought her clothes and Lenny folded up the blanket and carried it over his arm. Then, as Squiggy climbed into the back again, Lenny carefully spread the blanket on the front seat. These seats were burgundy, while the swan's had been golden and silver. The exterior of this car was wood in the back, silver in the front, with red-rimmed wheels. She had time to notice this because Lenny was smoothing the blanket out very neatly, far more neatly than she'd ever noticed he made his bed. It seemed pointless, considering how much she was going to mess up the blanket if they did this right (and she was pretty sure they were going to do this part at least right), but he was probably nervous. After all, a lot was riding on his shoulders.

She leaned over the car door, patted his shoulder, and said, "Looks good, Len."

"Thanks, Laverne." He looked up at her with those pining blue eyes. Back in '62, she'd hoped to make out with him and not have any serious consequences. She no longer could have any illusions about that, whether or not they time-traveled again. But considering how life had gone when she'd tried to back away from what was between them, maybe it was time to see what life, in any year, would be like with him as at least a boyfriend.

He kept kneeling but helped her climb back into the front seat. She dropped her sandals, jacket, and bellbottoms onto the floor next to him, then hesitated a moment before shedding her panties. Lenny lowered his head reverently and she put her thighs on his shoulders.


	16. Magic Carpet Ride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Well, you don't know what we can see  
> Why don't you tell your dreams to me  
> Fantasy will set you free"
> 
> —Steppenwolf, 1968

As Squiggy ate something less crunchy than popcorn, Lenny again ate out Laverne. Lenny hoped his tongue wouldn't get performance anxiety, because he was going to have to be damn good to take them from Anaheim to Pomona, site of the LA County Fairgrounds, as he knew from when he went there with Karen. (By ice cream truck, not cuddlingus.) It was only about twenty miles as the magpie flies, but he was no Heckle or Jeckle, and on top of that, he had to somehow give Laverne just the right amount of Kleenexing to get the three of them back to the summer day that Shirley wore her gray daisy dress to the fair.

Whether or not Shirley would willingly go back with them was a separate issue and they'd climb that mountain, ford that stream, when they got to it. Squiggy was the one who saw it happen in paint and glass and Lenny only knew about it second-handed.

He caught snatches of conversation as he snacked on Laverne's snatch.

"...Details now."

"Well, once the seats emerged into one bed...undressing each other...she gave Len a foot massage...."

"You put my peace necklace on her?"

"...The tits of both of you girls...."

"Is he wearing those peace-sign boxers now?"

"Yeah, which I figured was a good oment this morning...."

Lenny blushed against Laverne's lovely dirty-strawberry-blonde pubes and tried not to think about her maybe seeing those boxers in '67, whether or not in a swan boat.

"Mmm, Lenny, your face is so warm! Your sweet mouth." She stroked his slicked-back hair. "Was I wearing today's panties, Squig?"

"Your purple Saturday's? Yeah, and then...."

"Me and Shirl made out?"

"Yeah, and you kept making out when me and Len went down on you two, Lenny with you of course....played with my dick and I played with your tits."

"Did you like, do you think you liked that?"

"Nationally. Who wouldn't?"

Lenny and Squiggy had of course talked about it when Squig first told him about the mirror. It would be amazing to share the girls, but they still wanted to respect each other's claim. Not to mention that Shirley obviously was more interested in Squiggy than Lenny, who had plenty of evidence of Laverne's preference for him. The balance in the mirror sounded right, but it wouldn't be easy.

And right now, Lenny was using his mouth to pleasure Laverne, while Squiggy used his mouth to tell her about an orgy she might shortly participate in. Her voice seemed calm as she responded to Squiggy, but she was dancing with Lenny's face all the while. She hadn't come yet, but she was very open, wet, and lovable. He knew that he was going to be walking around with a hard-on wherever the car took them, but maybe she'd help him out, even if Shirley didn't wanna get involved.

"What were Lenny and Shirley doin'?"

"Lyin' next to each other, holdin' hands."

"Awww!"

"And then you had 'em suck your tits together."

"Oh!" She gushed at that, especially since Lenny was sucking her clit at the moment.

"Then I started teasin' Shirl's labels with my hard cock. And you had Lenny move to where you could ride him while you soul-kissed Shirley."

"God!"

"Then I slowly, carefully started fuckin' Shirley, and you whispered somethin' to her and stroked her hair, like you was tellin' her somethin' to make her first time easier."

Lenny always got choked up at that part, and he was glad that his other self spoke to Shirley, too, as Squiggy now told Laverne.

"...Not that we could hear nothin', me and the real Shirl, but we could see it."

"...All trying to make her first time good for her?"

"Yeah, and...we was both on top fuckin' 'em....cherry....blood, not a lot...tryin' to be gentle....Len, obviously having a good time...."

Lenny was using his hands more now, one stroking and squeezing her soft but firm breasts, the other going deeper inside her than his tongue could get, trying to be patient until his prick could get back in there. Her pussy trapped his fingers but he could still wiggle them inside her, and he could feel the pulsing of her walls.

"Lenny!"

"Yeah, he was fuckin' you from below, lookin' at you with that dopy face he gets even when you just kiss him, like you stun him and stone him."

Lenny blushed in Laverne's crotch again, and this time she tenderly stroked his hair. And her pussy kept hugging his hand.

"...All came except her...."

Lenny always felt bad about that part, even though Squiggy had made Shirley come from going down on her earlier. Lenny didn't like it when she got left out of things, which was why he still felt guilty that they didn't take her to Disneyland in '65. But maybe some day they could all be one united mound of flesh and soul.

"God, I feel like I'm flying!" Laverne gasped when Lenny was resting his mouth and had switched hands.

"Well, the car is," Squiggy said calmly.

"WOW!"

Lenny looked up, but all he could see from the the floor of the car was a blue sky that looked more real than the one in Chalkdrawingland, including with smog. He coughed. "Should I stop?"

"Not yet!" Laverne begged.

"Let's wait until we're closer to landing," Squiggy said.

So Lenny kept pleasuring Laverne with his hands and hoped they wouldn't end up someplace where they'd be arrested for pubic lewdness.


	17. Do You Believe in Magic?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "If you believe in magic, come along with me  
> We'll dance until morning till there's just you and me  
> And maybe, if the music is right  
> I'll meet you tomorrow, sort of late at night  
> And we'll go dancing, Baby, then you'll see  
> How the magic's in the music and the music's in me"
> 
> —The Lovin' Spoonful, 1965

It took all of Squiggy's deadpanic to not noticeably react as his secret fiancée bade goodbye to her long-term boyfriend.

"I'm sorry you can't go with us, Carmine."

"It's OK, Angel Face. I've gotta get things ready for the recital tonight. And I'm not a big Godzilla fan anyway."

"Neither am I, but I promised Laverne, and she promised Lenny."

"Why's Squiggy goin'?"

"For Mothra of course." He had to speak up for himself then.

It wasn't like he was spying on 'em. The three of them was standing out on the sidewalk one summer Saturday morning, July 3, 1965 to be precise.

Carmine chuckled and said, "Well, as long as you're back in time to see the recital."

Shirley hesitated and Squiggy knew she hated lying to Carmine. Squiggy was thinking of making a distraction, when Laverne said, "Of course we will be."

Squiggy turned and looked at her as she came down the steps. She was wearing the same halter top as in '62, but paired with a knee-length '65 miniskirt. Shirley was in her modest '62 sundress. Squiggy had reluctantly put on the plaid shirt and overalls again.

Squiggy turned his head again at the sound of Lenny, in cow trousers and white undershirt, honking the horn.

Carmine shook his head in disapproval. "Don't you guys ever wash that thing?"

Squiggy was unable to tell him that they, well, OK, Lenny had had to coat the truck in dust to make it look like it had been sitting abandoned in a field for three years. So Squiggy just grumbled, "We'll get to it."

"Goodbye, Carmine!" Shirley cried and flung her arms around him.

He stroked her bobbed hair and said, "It's just the movies. You're not going on a cruise round the world."

She laughed shakily and let go. "Well, not today."

Laverne lightly punched Carmine's shoulder and said, "See ya later, Carmine."

"Later, Laverne."

Squiggy easily recognized the guilty expression on Lenny's face and knew his best friend was on the edge of blurting everything, so he headed for the shotgun seat, waved over his shoulder, and said, "Don't worry, Big Raccoon, we'll try to bring Shirl back intact." After so many years, Squiggy knew exactly the degree to which he could piss off the former boxer without risking injury. And Squiggy was a master of distraction.

The girls got in the back of the truck and waited until Lenny drove off before they started arguing.

"Geez, Shirl, you were practically sobbing on his neck!"

"Oh, like you did with your father and Edna a couple months ago?"

"They were going to California! And it might be years before I see my pop again, maybe never for Edna. You can go visit Carmine in New York someday."

"That's not the point and you know it. I wasn't just saying goodbye to Carmine, I was saying goodbye to that part of my life."

Squiggy wasn't jealous. They'd talked about this, and to be honest, Shirley's goodbye to Boo Boo Kitty had been a lot more emotional.

They'd had three years to discuss all of this, the two of them, and the four of them. But back in the summer of '67, there wasn't time for long conversation.

As the car lost altotude, Squiggy handed Laverne napkins so she and Lenny could wipe away the signs of her pleasure.

Once Lenny's face was cum-free, he climbed back into the driver's seat as Laverne put on her panties and tugged down the hem of her tie-dye T-shirt, so it wouldn't be quite as short a minidress. Lenny looked away, but Squiggy was sure Len was already as hard as he was. "Yeah, that's the LA County Fairgrounds."

"OK, so if this is the right time and place," Laverne said, "she's with Walter. How are we gonna talk to her without him around?"

This was one of many details Squiggy had had years to figure out, although there were still things he'd have to leave to fate and surrenderipity. "He's a doctor, so I'll have him paged to the first aid tent."

"They're not gonna let you just page him like that," Laverne scoffed, looking at him over her shoulder.

"They will if we bribe them enough."

"What makes you think that?"

"It worked at Disneyland, didn't it?"

"You bribed the workers at the Happiest Place on Earth?" Lenny said in the same shocked tones he'd used about twenty-five years earlier when Squiggy explained that there was no Easter Bunny, although, yes, Santa Claus existed. (Squiggy remained agnostic about the Tooth Fairy.)

"I didn't see you slipping them any money," Laverne said septic-tank-full as ever, despite the fact that she was in a time-traveling flying car.

"I did it yesterday, in the hopes that you'd wear your purple Saturday panties and the rest of your purple outfit today."

The car landed on the edge of the parking lot, to minimal reaction, as if this was just a publicity stunt related to the fair. Squiggy regretted not being able to keep the car, but he knew he'd see it again. He paid at the ticket booth, as he had at Disneyland. He'd been saving up for this expedition for months. And, yes, he was able to bribe the PA announcer.

They didn't have to discuss where to find Shirley. Where else would she be but the baby animal barn?

She didn't look too surprised to see them, not in those outfits. She must've remembered the visions in the tunnel as clearly as he did. "I know you want me to come quietly—"

Lenny bit his hand and Laverne elbowed him.

"...But what about Walter? I can't just run out on our date without explanation."

"It depends where we end up," Squiggy answered, as the engineer of the plan, "but I think we can work around that."

"What, with more time travel?"

"I'm willing to make that sacrifice, if you are."

She let Laverne and Squiggy pull her by the hands as Lenny, the least able to read a map, easily found the Tunnel of Love, like his cock was a compass. The only other question she asked before a familiar-looking double swan boat pulled up was, "Where did you three come from?"

"Milwaukee, same as you," Lenny answered. "Well, in my case, originally Teaneck."

Squiggy understood though. "Anaheim, next summer."

He expected her to ask what had happened in the past year, but she fumed, "You went to Disneyland without me again!"

He squeezed the hand he was still holding, although Laverne had let go of Shirley's other hand. "We'll make it up to you."

And they did, although they still couldn't achieve a four-sided simultaneous orgasm. It happened exactly as he'd seen it however many years ago in the magic mirror, but this time he could hear, feel, taste, and, yes, smell the experience.

He thought at one point he could see a mirror reflecting their 1962 selves, but he was too distracted to get a good look.

After they achieved one heaving mound of flesh, or at least as close as they were going to get this time, the swan stopped at the edge of a shallow pool. They all got out and skinny-dipped, washing the pleasure fluids and each other's scents off. When they went back to the swan, their late '60s clothes had been replaced by what they'd worn to Oconomowoc in '62, including jeans rather than cow pants for Lenny. There were towels, too, and when the girls dried off their hair, they had 1962 do's. (The boys' styles in hair and fashion wouldn't change much as years passed, in either direction, Squiggy's especially.)

When they were present and presentable again, the swan floated along, eventually exiting the tunnel and out into the sunlight. They were back at the Waukesha County Fair in the Summer of '62.

They could've stuck around, but they agreed to head back to Milwaukee while they could. It had already been a full morning.

The girls decided to surprise Carmine by going to watch his dance recital after all.

"We're still going to have to miss the one in '65," Laverne said, which made Shirl shed a few tears.

Still, she got three more years with Ragusa, the three years that the four of them had lost three years ago. Or two years ago in Shirley's case. Squiggy was still working that part out.

In some ways, it'd been much easier to bluff their way through their first return, without having yet experienced half of '62 through half of '65, pretending they remembered things that everyone else did. This time, Laverne and the boys had to pretend to not know anything about mid-'62 through mid-'68, and Shirley's direct knowledge covered through the beginning of the Summer of Love. It was one thing when they had to pretend to not know, for instance, all the changes the Beatles would go through, and something else when they knew that terrible things were coming as the '60s marched on.

"Vernie, why can't we go to Dallas next week and somehow prevent President Kennedy from riding in an open car?"

"Because, Shirl," Laverne had patiently explained in November '63, "if we change anything, especially something big, it's gonna have a domino effect and that will throw off the years we've already gone through."

"And then," Lenny had chimed in, "we might not have the right set of circusdances to time-travel when we need to."

"After all, I'm resisting betting on sporting events," Squiggy had pointed out.

Shirley had fumed and fretted but given in. She seemed to want to both prevent the established future and wallow in the reclaimed past. She continued to date Carmine, and continued to go just far enough that the poor man had to keep taking cold showers.

"Is it that you don't want him to find out your cherry's gone or is that you know he can't live up to me?" Squiggy once asked her.

Her lips made a pouting moo but she reluctantly admitted, "You were very good, and as sweet as I hoped. But if you were a decent man, you'd have married me by now."

"How can I marry you when you're still a virgin when you marry Walter?"

She blinked, thought about it, and said, "Then we should be secretly engaged until such time as I'm divorced."

"I knew it, this is all your elaborate trap to become Mrs. Andrew Squiggman!"

She crossed her arms. "Right, I'm the one who interrupted your date with a future spouse in order to drag you five years into the past and halfway across the country."

"You didn't put up much of a transistence."

"Well, I figured somebody had to be living this life while our other selves were in the Oconomowoc Tunnel."

"Oh, so now you're takin' credit for workin' out the LEGOgistics."

"Get a room, you two," Lenny called from the arm of the girls' couch.

"Shhh! I've never seen this episode of _Sea Hunt_ before."

Squiggy still dated other girls, since he had a reputation to maintain. He didn't actually do much more with Shirl than a little huggin' and kissin', and never in public of course. (Lenny and Laverne didn't count as an audience, and they would themselves chow-noodle a bit out of pryin' eyes.)

Last night, they had to talk Shirley out of leaving herself a note, or at least coded diary entries, for her self that would be arriving tonight direct from 1962.

"No, Shirl. Just newspapers, magazines, letters, things we'd leave lying around the apartment. Just enough so that we'll know a little of what we've missed, but nothin' about the future. I mean from now to '68."

"But, Vernie, I don't want that self to marry Walter in a couple years like you said I will."

"You know we can't make waves, Shirley," Lenny said.

Squiggy took her soft hand and looked into her big blue eyes. "Look, Feeney, I'm gonna take care of everything. You have to trust me."

She swallowed and nodded.

So here they were, on the road back to Podunkville. They had plenty of time to get there, since their other selves (the ones who were arriving from '62) weren't due in until the middle of the night.

Soon enough, Lenny parked in the abandoned field and everybody got out. Lenny took off his cow pants, which had been lying on the girls' living room floor when they got back in '62 from '67 Pomona, and he put the keys in the front pocket. As he stood there in his jeans and undershirt, he handed Laverne the cow trousers.

The four of them walked to the edge of the lake. Laverne, who could throw the farthest of course, flung the trousers into the lake and the keys stayed in the pocket.

"I think I was supposed to return those pants to the Fonz," Lenny suddenly remembered.

Laverne patted his arm. "If he hasn't asked for them back by now, I think you're OK."

"Now what?" Shirley asked.

This was another part Squiggy wasn't sure about. He was hoping that the flying car would show up, because it was cool and could presumably be driven on the streets. But, considering where they were, he wasn't surprised when a swan's neck broke the lake's placid surface.

"Yay, it's our swan!" Lenny cheered as the boat sailed towards them.

"So, Squig," Laverne asked, "how much of a heaving mound are we gonna be this time, to get us to '68?"

"Uh, yeah, about that. Shirl, I'm afraid I forgot to fully calcinate you in as a factotum."


	18. Yesterday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away  
> Now it looks as though they're here to stay  
> Oh, I believe in yesterday"
> 
> —The Beatles, 1965

On the edge of Oconomowoc Lake, Squiggy explained that having removed the 1967 Shirley from Southern California, they needed someone to go back and be Shirley for three months, until she left town. "...And, Shirl, you're the best qualified for the job."

She whined, "But I don't wanna marry Walter!"

"Talk to me."

"You know how I feel about him, and about having to go away like Laverne told me I will."

"No, I mean talk to '67 me. He can help you out."

"You been holdin' out on us, Squig?"

"I'll explain later, Len. First we've gotta get back to Pomona '67."

Laverne whined, "But I don't wanna relive the worst year of my life."

"If we do this right, you won't have to."

"What do you want us to do?" Lenny asked.

"You and Laverne? Nothin' right now. I've just gotta completely satisfy Shirley." He said it casually, as if it was well within his capabilities, but Shirley knew it weighed on him that she hadn't reached orgasm the first time they had intercourse. Not that she hadn't enjoyed it, but it was such a strange experience, and knowing what was going to happen didn't help. And, yes, Squiggy was as gentle as possible and their friends did what they could to relax her, but that didn't change the fact that she was losing her hymen. And she wasn't losing it to a handsome doctor at the Pfister Hotel, or Californian equivalent. She was losing it to Andrew Squiggman in a swan boat. It was what she wanted, but it wasn't what she had dreamed of.

And three years later, which was also two years earlier, that was still the only time she'd gone all the way. She only went as far with Carmine as she plausibly could in '62 to '65. And no one else she dated during that time had tempted her to do more than kiss. As for Squiggy, ironically he had become more of a gentleman since deflowering her.

But clearly, he hadn't lost interest. Laverne had told her how Squiggy had had Lenny "power the flying car" in California, and he certainly could've chosen to now have their friends fool around again instead. Or they could've all done something less orgasmic.

Laverne shook her head. "OK, Squig, explain the math on this one."

"Well, it's sort of a reversal of our last swan trip. We'll go from here to Pomona, but two years ahead instead of five years back. So two-fifths of an orgy is me doin' it with Shirley."

Shirley could've argued about it, especially since, unlike their trip from Pomona to Oconomowoc, they had no proof this had ever happened. What if Squiggy's calculations were wrong and they didn't end up in the time and place they were aiming for? Not to mention she was going to be self-conscious making love with Squiggy in front of their best friends, if the other couple was going to be awake and not even necking.

"We should sit in the backseat," she said, "when the boat is dry enough."

So Lenny, as the tallest and the most easily pushed around, waded out to drag the boat onto the shore, turned it over to get most of the water out, and then set it in the summer sunshine to remove the remaining dampness.

As they waited, Shirley's friends filled her in on the year since her last and so far latest departure. Not what had happened to them personally, which they'd already told her (poor Vernie rightly considered it a terrible year), but what had happened to the world. Shirley wept over Dr. King and RFK, but she didn't even suggest trying to save Bobby by going back a couple months early, although he would die in the same state they were trying to return to. As for the Vietnam War, that was far too big to take on, even if her friends would let her.

Mostly they talked about entertainment: TV and movies and most of all music. What Laverne and the boys still referred to as rock & roll was evolving into rock, which in turn was splintering into psychedelic, bubblegum, blues rock, etc., although the borders were fluid and easily crossed. The Beatles, as always, were leaders of the pack.

Lenny and Squiggy had just finished singing the very long "Hey Jude" (seven minutes!), when Laverne said, "Let's see if the swan is dry enough yet." She turned it over and felt both front and back seats. "Yeah, it's ready."

Shirley wasn't sure if she was ready, but she nodded and helped her friends carry the boat to the edge of the water. Then everyone got in, the taller, blonder pair in the front, the short brunets in the back. They sat and waited for something to happen, but the gentle waves of the lake lapped at the boat without moving it.

"Can me and Laverne hold hands?"

"Sure," Squiggy said and slipped his hand over Shirley's.

Shirley well remembered holding hands with Squiggy in the Oconomowoc Tunnel, how her brothers' warnings a dozen years earlier had finally come true.

"It may sound harmless, Kid," said Michael.

"But you don't know where it'll lead," Timothy agreed.

"And we don't just mean kissing," Christopher whispered.

Her favorite brother waited until the high school boys had gone outside to shoot hoops before he said, "Holding hands is OK, Shirl. Just use your common sense with boys."

"Thanks, Bobby."

When she was herself in high school, she'd learned that common sense didn't apply to Andrew Squiggman, although he had his own form of logic. How could she be so drawn to someone who repulsed her? Was it that they'd grown up together and she knew he wasn't the bad boy he pretended to be? Or was it that he wasn't entirely wrong that time she was hospitalized and he said she was like a female version of him?

She knew that on the surface, there were ways she and Lenny were more alike, the sweet dreamers to their tough, "realistic" best friends. But her cautious approach to romance did not resemble Lenny's automatic inclination to commit hard and early. It was Laverne who would decide to marry or move in with men she'd been dating two months or less, Shirley who would recommend slowing down.

She certainly hadn't rushed into a commitment with Squiggy. And she knew he both feared and desired their marriage. The entry about her in his little black book was revealing. He wouldn't have had to warn himself if he hadn't on some level wanted to marry her and make babies.

Unlike Laverne, Shirley was not on birth control. How could she be when she was supposed to be saving herself for her wedding night? When she left for her date to the fair with Walter, it wasn't like she could slip a diaphragm into her purse. And Squiggy had put bribe money, not a condom, into his wallet when he planned to go to Disneyland with Laverne and Lenny a year later. When Shirley gave herself to him in the Pomona Tunnel, she did it with the assumption that she would not get pregnant, unless they accidentally went into a future where she could plausibly be pregnant, rather than a past where she was only twenty-four.

This time, she had to assume she wouldn't get pregnant because Laverne had told her about the false positive pregnancy test. The rabbit would die in vain in the fall of '67. Unless, again, they overshot Squiggy's estimations.

The swan boat started moving just under the power of hand-holding, unless that was the gentle waves. It drifted across the lake and to a pink building with a large opening. Shirley assumed it led to the Tunnel of Love, although she couldn't really be sure of anything anymore.

"Can we kiss?"

"I don't wanna kiss you right now, Len."

"No, Squig, I mean me and Laverne."

"Let's wait until we get back to California," Laverne said. "It's their turn now."

"Oh, sorry, Shirl, go right ahead."

"Thank you, Leonard." Shirley did open her mouth and let Squiggy slip his tongue in as the swan's neck penetrated the arched doorway. She tried not to feel too self-conscious kissing in front of Lenny and Laverne, who thankfully were respectfully quiet. She hoped she could relax enough to climax at least once and get them all where they needed to go. She of course had no doubts about her ability to bring Squiggy to orgasm.

She had been kissing Squiggy off and on for the past three years, always in the privacy of her apartment and never for very long. She knew the taste of his mouth now, somehow sweet beneath the strange foods he ate. But she had only once before fully experienced his passion, the way his tongue was hungry and insistent as it thrust in, when she knew the kissing was leading to their role in the swan boat orgy that he had misled the _Dating Game_ viewers about.

There was a part of Shirley that wanted to be swept away, to not think, to just feel. Squiggy was the opposite of a knight-in-shining-armor whisking her off on a white horse. And yet, Shirley did not share Laverne's love of bad boys, or even quasi-bad boys, although she understood the appeal of Fonzie. She wanted Squiggy because in some strange way he completed her, and she him. In the crudest terms she could put it, he gave her goosebumps.

It wasn't that Carmine didn't excite her. She'd continued their involvement not only because she wanted to smooth the path for her July '65 to July '67 self, but because he represented a comforting link to a simpler past. And he was very sexy, in a way that made sense. Her attraction to Squiggy only made sense when she was in his arms.

She sucked on his tongue and his hands started wandering a bit. She was sure he remembered, as she did, how they'd made out in these clothes sort of three summers ago. He now slid down the straps of her sundress, so she tried to undo the straps of his overalls but couldn't work the hooks without looking.

He stopped kissing and put his hands over hers. "Shirl, there's no hurry to undress me. Let's focus on you right now."

She would've thought he was being surprisingly unselfish, but she knew he had a plan in mind and he didn't want to deviate from it. The trouble was, she was less likely to reach orgasm if she was following a script, as she'd felt when she lost her virginity.

She lifted one of his hands and put it on the bodice of her sundress, making him gasp. Then as his hand curled, she went back to that overall strap and played with it. "Squiggy," she teased, "you know you wanna get naked with me."

"Well, yeah," he admitted, as his other hand wandered over to the other half of her bosom.

She used both freed hands to undo one of his straps as she said, "You liked it when we were naked before."

"Of course, but...."

She undid the other strap as she whispered, "I liked it, too."

"Good God, Woman!"

And then they were all over each other. Hands tearing clothes off each other, lips kissing the bared flesh.

She'd half forgotten the other couple, until Lenny said, "Excuse me," climbed out of the swan, and dunked himself up to the waist.


	19. Time Won't Let Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Can't you see  
> I've waited too long  
> To love you  
> To hold you in my arms?"
> 
> —The Outsiders, 1966

Lenny taking the closest equivocation to a cold shower broke the mood and possibly the spell. "Get back in here, Lenny," Squiggy ordered.

Laverne hung over the side of the swan and said, "Yeah, we don't want you to be left behind."

"The boat's movin' pretty slow and I can keep up. Besides, I can't keep sittin' next to you. It's too hard." The way his voice cracked that last word, like he was soaking huge, aching blue balls and a desperate purple dick in the Turk-wise water of the tunnel, made Squiggy wanna both laugh and pat his best friend on the head. He had plans for Lenny, but meanwhile the poor guy was gonna have to suffer, as Squiggy had suffered watching Lenny and Laverne in the flying car.

Laverne reached out and said, "Hold my hand, Len."

Her unofficial boyfriend took it and squeezed it. "Thank you, My Darling."

Laverne blushed at the simple enspearmint, in contrast to her lack of self-conscience over getting physical with Len in front of them. She looked over the back of her seat and snapped, "Will you two hurry up before the poor boy gets all pruny?"

Shirley let out a very sexy laugh and stretched out naked on the backseat. Squiggy had planned to carefully build up from foreplay, like last time, but everyone was inspiring against him, his throbbing cock conclusive.

He lay down on top of her but didn't immediately enter her, except with two fingers, as his thumb rubbed her clit. They necked and whispered.

"That feel good, Baby?"

"Yes, Honey, oh!"

"Wanna make you wetter and wetter, Woman!"

"Gosh, Squiggy!"

"You've made me so hard!"

He felt her soft hand wrap around his hardness, as she said, "Uh huh."

"Oh God oh God!"

She spread her legs more and guided him into her, even as she said, "You naughty boy, I know what you want to do to me."

"I gotta fuck you, Shirl!" he gasped, plunging into the wetness.

She clucked her tongue in his ear. "Is that any way to talk to a nice girl?"

He was about to apologize and then he got it. "Yeah, you're practically a virgin, but your pussy remembers me." He switched to shallow dips in and out of her.

"Oh, you bad boy!" she scolded as she pinched his nipples.

"Sweet cunt, especially on my tongue!" He licked her ear.

"So dirty!" she gasped as her knees pressed against his ass.

"Your mind is nice but your body was born to be bad." He gave her deeper strokes.

She rolled around under him as she breathed, "No, my body is good."

"Your body is great, you sexy little floozy!"

"That is no way to talk about your future wife." Her box clamped around his tool.

"My future wife the ex-stripper," he said as he managed to get some nobility within her, although she clearly wasn't gonna let him out of there until the job was done.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Andrew," she said as she bumped and ground around him.

"Oh, don't you, Roxy?"

And then they stopped talking as he ate out her ear and they threw themselves into a good, hard screw. He couldn't get at her clit anymore but he teased her perky pink nipples with his fingertips. She scratched his back, squeezed his balls, and bit his neck.

"Mmm, Tiger!"

"Lioness!"

She came, her pretty face getting pinker, her soft, sweet pussy washing his prick, her voice dropping an octagon as she moaned.

"Mmm, yes, Baby, come for your man!"

"Oh God, I can't believe I'm, oh, darn you, Squiggy!" She came again.

"Good cunt, so good, OH GOD!" He thrust real fast, feeling her pussy lips, inner and outer, kissing his staff as it pumped out his baby-juice.

He knew he wouldn't get her pregnant because Laverne had told him about the screwed-up pregnancy test. He was going into the future but he wasn't making an heir to the Squiggman LEGOcy. He almost wished he was, but it was better to wait until things were less complicated. Shirley had already trapped him enough.


	20. How Can I Be Sure?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Maybe you're trying to use me  
> Flying too high can confuse me  
> Touch me but don't take me down"
> 
> —The Young Rascals, 1967

After Squiggy and Shirley did it, the swan led to another shallow pool, where the two of them freshened up. Lenny held the boat in place so it wouldn't take off without them, but it waited patiently, like it had all the time in the world.

Then all three of them climbed back into the swan and Laverne distributed the towels that magically appeared, like before. Squiggy and Shirley's passion-ripped 1962/1965 clothes had been replaced by Squiggy's all-black outfit and Shirley's daisy dress.

"Looks like we're wearing our '65 outfits awhile longer, Len," Laverne said with a smile.

Lenny didn't mind much. Laverne looked cute whatever she wore, and she'd told him she liked how he looked in a white undershirt and jeans. He did wonder though if he'd ever see his blue Hawaiian shirt again.

The swan went around a turn and Lenny could see another swan ahead of them, just a regular swan with two kissing human heads inside. It was heading towards light, they all were, including the two people smiling at each other in the boat behind them. He didn't feel the jolt of surprise he had however many years ago when they ended up behind the swan with Pigtails and Knuckle-Cracker. But he hadn't paid as much attention to the people in line in Pomona, so he wouldn't have recognized these nautical neighbors. All he'd been able to think about in Pomona, or anywhere, was Laverne.

Well, no, that wasn't quite true. He thought about lots of things, from Godzilla to how things worked, but she was the center. And so, back in Pomona, he was mostly thinking about the chance to make love with Laverne again, but that hadn't meant he wasn't thinking about the other stuff, from the bendable but not breakable nature of time to why the swan wanted the four of them to overlap, to become one mound yet two couples.

He and Squiggy were friends for over twenty years before they first kissed, and then they didn't even know it. They had their eyes closed and both thought they were kissing Laverne. Lenny didn't find out until Laverne told him, in 1963 Milwaukee.

They were talking about their foursome, just the two of them in her living room, not to get turned on, but the dynamism amongst them, not just physically. They'd had some pizza and beer, so Laverne was relaxed enough for Lenny to breach the subject.

"Uh, Laverne, you ever wonder why everyone was playin' with your boobs in The Boat?"

She looked down at her chest and he knew she was back to wearin' bras, because he could always spot the difference. "Well, they're nice boobs."

He resisted the easy compliment. "No, I mean, you was playin' with Shirley's boobs, too."

"She's got a nice pair, too, littler but very soft and sensitive."

"But how did the swan know you'd wanna touch em?"

She took another sip of Shotz before replying, "Me and Shirl have always been close, and I was practically Walter's proxy at their wedding. And we'd kissed a few times and she's a good kisser." She set down the beer can. "But I love men, being physical with them, and I don't need to be physical with Shirley to love her."

He nodded and swallowed a couple bites of the Three-Slice Special. "Yeah, I understand. Like, I love that little guy, but I don't need to even kiss him. Squiggy I mean, not Walter."

"I know, Len, but you have kissed him." And then she told him about the time in the Fall of '67.

So after he went home with a few kisses from Laverne, he told Squiggy, who said, "Oh, I wondered why she seemed to have a little face stubble."

They kissed a few times in the next couple years, not full makeouts, since they both preferred girls, but it was good. It was always in the privacy of their own apartment, although he did tell Laverne about it, just like he told her about the girls he dated during that time.

"You're the one I most want, Laverne, but we can't be exclusive right now, none of us."

She'd nodded, although she didn't like to kiss & tell about the guys she dated. And he knew that they might not get a Happily Ever After, that time-travel was a risky business. He was always gonna love Laverne, but they might not end up together, and it was even less likely that Squiggy and Shirley was gonna end up together, engagement or not.

"Do you think maybe we should get engaged now that they are?"

"Len, we don't even know for sure where we're gonna wind up when we leave mid-'65 for our other selves to take over until mid-'68. I don't want a fiancé if I'm in high school."

He didn't say that he wouldn't have minded, since it would've been a guaranteed prom date, rather than seeing who Squiggy could scrounge up for him.

Their boat left the tunnel, whichever tunnel it was now, and Lenny blinked at the sunlight. He saw palm trees and he thought they were probably back in California. Of course, it'd be cool to go to Hawaii and get a real Hawaiian shirt. He helped Laverne out of the boat, even though Squiggy called him "Manners the Butler" and Laverne didn't really need his help. Shirley made her own way out of the swan.

Lenny was looking around for clues to their time and location, so he didn't notice the short man glaring at them until he heard, "So! This is where you disappeared to!"

"Walter!' Shirley gasped.

Lenny had never met Walter until the wedding. He hadn't even known the groom's name until a day or two before the wedding and, yes, he and Squiggy had found it hilarious that the last names rhymed. He knew Walter was taller than Squiggy but maybe Laverne's height. Dr. Meeney was wrapped completely in bandages, like a mummy, because of a serious rash. It didn't sound like it'd be much of a honeymoon, but Shirley was supposed to be really in love with him, although that's not what she said when they went back to Milwaukee. Maybe she fell in love with him after she returned to '67. Lenny found both time and love confusing, especially in combination.

"Walter, this isn't what...." Shirley's words, whether "it looks like" or "you think," faded away, because, well, yes, while it was true that Walter likely didn't imagine that they were using a swan boat to violate the Mann Act and twist time like a Moby-Dick strip, she had just emerged from the Tunnel of Love with a man whose neck was covered in hickeys.

Walter shook his head, said, "Find your own way home," and stormed off.

"Should I go after him?" Shirley whispered.

"No!" the other three exclaimed.

"But how will I, I mean, what about the future?"

"Looks like you and Walter ain't got no future no more," Lenny observed, earning him an elbowing from Laverne.

"Trust me, Shirl."

"So what now?" Laverne asked, not unseasonably.

"We take Wally's advice and find our way home."

"Can we eat first?" Lenny asked.

Squiggy rolled his eyes. "What am I, made of money?"

"I'll pay for it," Laverne said irritably. "But I think we should get it to go."

"Yay, fair fare!" Lenny said, doing a little hop that made Laverne give him that _I love you, you big dope_ look, although she never used those words out loud.

"You want anything, Shirl?" Laverne asked at the hot dog stand.

"No, I seem to have to lost my appetite."

"Yeah, voe-dee-oh-doe with Squiggy can do that to a person."

"Hey!"

Laverne patted Squiggy's Beatles cap. "You know I'm just teasing."

"Yeah, well, don't forget that I know how to get you home and no one else does."

"Well, we're takin' the car, right?"

"Yeah, but you don't know how we're powering it."

"I think I can guess."

"Can we not discuss this here?" Shirley said nervously, like she was afraid that Walter might come back and give her a second chance.

So they all went out to the parking lot and found the flying car intact. Lenny didn't think they'd been gone too long, although obviously they'd come back sometime after they left, if Walter had had time to notice Shirley wasn't in the baby animal barn.

"Shirl, I'm sorry you can't go with us, but here's bus fare."

"Thank you, Squiggy."

Laverne gave Shirley a side hug so she wouldn't drop her food. "Good luck, Shirl. Hope to see you soon." Lenny knew that Laverne's greeting-card words covered up a lot of emotion, including how much Laverne had missed Shirley when Shirl went to Germany with Walter. Except maybe that wouldn't happen after all. Would Shirley make up with Walter?

"Goodbye for now, Leonard."

He handed his food to Laverne and gave Shirley a lifting, spinning hug. Then he set her down and said, "Tell me I said hi."

"I'm afraid that might make '67 you suspicious."

"Oh, good point," Lenny said and took his food back from Laverne.

He was eating Cracker Jack when Shirley approached Squiggy, who was leaning against the driver's door. Lenny wondered if they'd do a big goodbye kiss or if Squiggy would try to play it cool. Lenny did not expect Shirley to whisper something that made Squiggy's face run the gambit of emotions. Shock and skepticality, fear and hope, anger and glee, danced across Squiggy's face in less than a minute.

Then he had a blank expression as he said, "Well, don't tell him."

She nodded and kissed his cheek. Then she waved goodbye and walked away, assumably for the bus stop.

"Don't tell who what?" Lenny demanded, hoping he wasn't him.

Squiggy shook his head. "Leonard, the sacred, intimate moments between a man and his woman deserve privacy and respect. Now get in the backseat so your girlfriend can go down on you."

Lenny's jaw dropped and Laverne almost choked on a hot dog.


	21. She'd Rather Be with Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Me oh my  
> Lucky guy is what I am  
> Tell you why you'll understand  
> She don't fly although she can"
> 
> —The Turtles, 1967

An hour later and four years earlier, Squiggy was looking over the client list at his kitchen table when someone knocked. Although he lived in LA, it was in a building with nothin' but friends. And as head of the Squignowski Talent Agency of Burbank (STAB), he had an obbligato to his clients. So he answered automatically, "Come in."

He looked up and smiled a little at the sight of Shirley in a knee-length gray dress with daisies on it. Her hems remained more modest than Laverne's, but he was grateful for the three-year time-skip in this regard, although he was still a '50s guy in some ways. "Hello," he said, he hoped not overly appreciably.

"Hi, Squiggy, is Lenny around?"

He tried not to show his disappointment. "He's at the recording studio with the Electric Banana Committee." Squiggy had mixed feelings about Lenny picking up extra money with sessions work. On the one hand, money was always good, no matter what the hippies said. And on the other, it took Lenny away from STAB, away from Squiggy and the life they'd built together.

"Good, I was hoping to see you alone."

"Should I gargle?" he asked seduct-tapely.

She pulled up a chair and said, "We need to talk."

The four scariest words in the female vocabularity, but Squiggy was intrigued. "About what?"

Blushing in that pretty way she had, she said, "Well, about what happened in Oconomowoc."

"When I lost half my popcorn in the lake?"

"Well, yes, but I mean before that."

He couldn't help grinning at the memory. "I would love to talk about that!" Then his smile faded. "You never wanna talk about that."

"Well, I don't want to go into detail, but it sort of happens again, um, three times. Well, it's probably happened for a fourth time since I left."

"Left where?"

"The LA County Fair."

"Oh, yeah, Laverne said you had a date with the new guy. How's that goin'?"

She sighed. "That's part of what I need to talk to you about."

"OK. When you say it happened three or four times, are you talking about the orgies or the time travel?"

"Well, sort of both. First, next summer you have Lenny and Laverne perform an intimate act to take the three of you back to today."

This raised so many questions he hardly knew where to start, but he went with the one he knew she was least likely to answer. "Which intimate act?"

More blushing. "You'll have to figure that out next year when the time comes."

"Will it be in a swan boat?"

"No, that time it's a flying car." 

"Where do we get a flying car?"

She hesitated and then said, "Disneyland."

He knew how crazy this conversation was and he would've wondered what had happened to sensible Shirley Feeney, if they hadn't time-traveled two years before. So he next asked, "Am I gonna show up any minute?"

"I don't think so. Definitely not from that trip."

"So where am I?"

"Right now? I'm not sure. But maybe two hours ago, you, Laverne, and Lenny showed up and took me to the Tunnel of Love."

"Like in the painting?" he asked quietly, having hoped ever since they'd moved somewhere with palm trees that it would come true. That was why he talked Lenny into immediately signing a three-year lease on the apartment across from the girls. Not that Lenny had needed much convincing once it sunk in that he wouldn't have to pine from as afar as half the country. (Of course they still took two lively ladies home from the beach that evening, because it wasn't like they was engaged to Shirley and Laverne.)

"Yes. And, well, what we, you and I, saw in the magic mirror, came true."

"One heaving mound of flesh," he murmured.

"Um, yes. So the swan boat, which might've been the same one as before, I don't know, took us back to Oconomowoc in 1962. And the four of us lived out our lives, trying to fill in that three-year gap in such a way that when our other selves showed up, they could take over."

He nodded. He'd often wondered why Carmine and everyone had always acted like they'd only been gone a few hours. This insane explanation had its own logic. Not that he didn't still have questions.

"So that's twice since the first time, once in a car and once in a swan. What was the next time?"

"Well, about an hour ago, we arrived back at the LA County Fair."

"From '65?"

"Yes."

"And you're not gonna tell me how, are ya?"

"Well, we used a swan boat again."

"I mean Anne-and-Tomically."

"You'll have to figure that out yourself."

"OK. And you think it's happened a fourth time? Well, fifth total."

"Yes, but without me, any of my selves."

He nodded. "Because we went back a year, '68 to '67? I mean me, Len, and Laverne. So it would have to be the three of us goin' back to '68, right?"

"I think so. Anyway, I'm here and I have to marry a man who just dumped me."

"The new guy?"

"Yes, I was gone long enough for him to notice my absence, maybe an hour. And then when he saw me again, I was leaving the Tunnel of Love and you had a lot of hickeys."

Squiggy couldn't help grinning. "Yeah?"

"It's not funny!"

"Oh, trust me, this is not amusement on my mug." Then he frowned. "Why do you gotta marry the new guy?"

"I don't want to, but Laverne told me that in the next year, well, just in the next three months, I'll marry Walter, that's the new guy, have a false-positive pregnancy test, and run off to Germany with him, in that order. He's an Army medic and he'll get shipped out."

"Oh. So you need to fake a wedding, a rabbit test, and an elopement?"

"Yes, I guess I do. And you, the you from mid-'65, told me to trust you, the you from now."

"My faith in me is touching, but this ain't gonna be easy, even for a man of my scheming caperbilities."

"I know, but I have some information that Laverne has told me about the time between now and when I'll leave town."

"Like?"

"Like she's the only one who had met Walter before the wedding, since Carmine had been out of town for three weeks when I got engaged."

"Right, he's been gone two weeks now."

"So that gives me a week or less to get 'engaged.' "

"Yeah. But what about me and Len? And Rhonda? We never met Walter when you was datin'?"

"No, Laverne said, well, I was worried you and Lenny would make fun of Walter, because his last name rhymes with mine."

"Yeah? What is it?"

"You'll find out soon enough."

"It's Beany, isn't it? Like Beany and Cecil B. DeMille?"

"No! And I guess I didn't introduce him to Rhonda because, well, she's Rhonda."

Squiggy nodded. Rhonda could turn the heads of any man, little or big, and Laverne probably figured Shirley didn't want to have him meet Miss Lee until Shirley had safely caught him.

"And then at the wedding, Walter was, or will be, covered from head to toe in bandages."

Squiggy's eyes widened. "Like a mummy?"

"Well, yes. Laverne told me it was because I told her he had an all-over-body rash."

Squiggy gagged, and he was not easily disgusted.

"Now that I think about it, it sounds like something you would come up with."

He smiled in faked modesty. "Well, yeah, if it was a rushed job."

"I'm not sure why you, we, bothered with my telling Laverne I was pregnant, only to have me write to her from Germany— Oh, Squiggy, how am I going to write from her from Germany?"

"Relax, Shirl, I've got this." He turned over the client list and grabbed his pen. "Now tell me in detail everything that's supposed to happen to you in the next three months."


	22. Gimme Little Sign

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "But if you need me, show me that you love me  
> And when I'm feeling down, wearing a frown  
> You be there when I look around"
> 
> —Brenton Wild, 1967

_P.S. This part is for you to share with Carmine, and no one else. Carmine, you will always be very special to me. Even though I've fallen in love with someone else, that does not mean I never loved you. I just could never take the big step of marrying you. And I think if you're honest, you'll admit you felt the same way about me. Still, I know you believed I would be the best part of the 1960s, and I hope that you can still treasure our good times, as I do._

__

__

_One other thing. I want you to know that I'm sure that if you had been my first, it would've been incredible. Not that I regret my first time of course, but it must be different when it's someone you've shared so many kisses and touches with. And you're very good at kissing and touching._

Shirley set down her pen. Had she said too much, too little? How do you sum up years of a relationship? How do you say goodbye forever to someone you've already said goodbye forever to, without them knowing it? And was it even forever?

She'd never told him about the time travel, or what caused it. Maybe she should've said something after that first leap from '62 to '65, but would he have believed her? Even with Laverne and the boys backing her up, it would've sounded impossible, especially to a level-headed man like Carmine. And at that point, she hadn't known why he and the others hadn't noticed their absence.

Perhaps she should've said something when she returned to '62. She could've used her knowledge of the next three years to prove she'd been to "the future." But Laverne and the boys kept insisting that they could change nothing about the future they'd already experienced, which telling Carmine definitely would've, even if he didn't believe her.

Also, Shirley was used to keeping secrets. It started when she was a little girl and her father came home from the sea every few months. He'd return bearing gifts and promises, but her mother, it seemed to Shirley, was ungrateful, always picking fights with him. It wasn't until years after the divorce that Shirley understood the lies and the drinking, and how her mother had covered over the lines of breakage, not just for the five kids but for everyone.

By the time Shirley was a teenager, her mother would tell her, "You'll need somebody steady and reliable." So Shirley tried to be a practical dreamer, hoping she'd meet and fall in love with a doctor, or equivalent, and live happily ever after. But how do you plan for and dream about a future when time doesn't run in a clear line?

Neither did love, it seemed. How was it that crazy Squiggy turned out to be the steadiest, most reliable man she'd ever met? He was the one she'd turned to in her hour of need, because he had the right kind of insanity to understand the strange workings of a time-traveling, orgasm-powered swan boat.

And she didn't tell even him everything, not '67 Squiggy, on the advice of '65 Squiggy. The latter was her secret fiancé and they'd gone through a lot. The former was the man who broke a pinky promise on live television. And that Squiggy still feared committing to her, although she knew he would help her avoid the unpalatable situation of having to make up with Walter and somehow hope that events played out as Laverne thought they had when she first boarded a flying car.

Not that this had been easy, and they weren't even finished. But so far they had fooled Laverne and the others into believing that Shirley was a happy wife and mother-to-be. Squiggy had had one of his most trusted clients call the apartment at the right times and Shirley had faked her way through conversations that Laverne would overhear half of. The aspiring actor had played Walter and other doctors. Squiggy had suggested he make the calls himself, but there was always the risk of Laverne picking up the phone. Squiggy had thought they might need more than one performer, but as it turned out, Shirley was quick enough to answer each time.

The young actor, Alfred Pacino, was 5'7" and his build was close enough to Walter's, especially wrapped completely in bandages, to pass as Walter in person. Laverne was surprised by the mummification, to the point that she fainted, but she didn't really question it. Neither did anyone else.

"I guess I can't tell no one I was the lead in _The Mummy's Bride_ , huh?" Al had joked. He was a good sport about the whole thing, and Shirley found his New-York Italianness comforting. If he ended up being the only groom she'd ever actually exchange vows with (well, he had to communicate through blinks), it wouldn't be terrible.

But she had the feeling she was going to end up marrying Squiggy, and she was happy about that, however twisted the bridal path was. Not that she was going to tell him that, not yet. But in less than a year, the self that she was three months ago would whisper in his ear, "My kid is going to need a last name and Squiggman is a pretty good name."

By the time she saw that beautiful, old flying car, she had the strangest feeling that she was pregnant, only it had been less than half an hour since Squiggy spilled his seed in her garden. She hadn't felt this way their first time, and she didn't think it was just that she'd reached orgasm, more than once, this time. She knew it was of course far too soon to know, and she remembered Laverne telling her about the mistaken rabbit test. Had she had a miscarriage and lied about it to Laverne in her letters from Germany? And did she still have to go to Germany with Walter?

She told the Squiggy leaning against the car door because she had to share this secret with someone and he was the father, if any. She didn't tell Laverne, either the Laverne standing there in her '62 halter top and '65 miniskirt in the LA County Fairgrounds parking lot or the '67 Laverne who would hand-write the initials of SF and WM on dozens of Cowboy Bill's napkins.

"So Mrs. Meeney-Feeney, it looks like you're rated PG."

She managed not to laugh at Al's, well, delivery of the line and the "news." He was supposed to say that the rabbit died, but he'd argued about that with Squiggy. "The rabbit always croaks, even if the chick ain't knocked up."

"Look, I'm the producer-director-writer here!" Squiggy had argued back.

Shirley had spoken up, "As long as he calls at the right time, I'll say my lines, and that's all Laverne will hear anyway."

It would not hit her until the baby was in preschool that the PG-rating wasn't yet around in '67, but somehow Al had made the joke and she got it. Yes, there was a baby, although she wasn't sure as the Summer of Love turned to the Fall of Further Confusion.

She did see an actual obstetrician, but she learned the results in the office, not over the telephone. And she was, at the time she wrote a P.S. for Carmine, supposed to be three months pregnant. Maybe she wasn't, or maybe she'd lose the baby, but she actually wanted Squiggy's child, just as he used to fear/desire. But she wasn't going to tell him that, not yet.

And she couldn't tell her best friend either. She longed to add a P.P.S., to share all the secrets she'd kept from Laverne, including that she still thought about their makeout in the second swan and was grateful that they got to explore those feelings once upon a time, even if it was just as part of "the heaving mound." They didn't have to be physical, but she was glad that she had sort of married Laverne, even if she had in a way been marrying Mr. Pacino and everyone thought she was marrying Dr. Meeney. (Well, the "minister" was in on it, since the balding man was another STAB client that Lenny had never met.) Whatever the future would bring, Shirley hoped Laverne would be a part of it, happy trails until they met again.

But first, Shirley had to go away, "to Germany." She and Squiggy still hadn't fully worked out this part. He did have distant cousins in Germany, and if need be he could have one of them write letters to Laverne, maybe using a typewriter, but that wasn't a perfect solution. His most reliable third cousin, Hannah, would have to sound like Shirley, her writing tics, turns of phrase, and of course Hannah's English would not be the same as a native speaker's, no matter how fluent. The only good thing about the location was that Shirley could plausibly say it was too long-distance to call.

The more immediate dilemma was where Shirley was going to go for at least the next nine months. None of her selves could be in Burbank again until at least July 1968. Should she just go to Germany on her own, maybe stay with Hannah Squiggman? Or was she going to time-travel again somehow?

She and Squiggy had discussed this and they agreed that he, at least not this self, could not go with her. He had to hold down the fort, and become the Squiggy who would lead Laverne and Lenny back to the summer of '67, where they could rescue Shirley from Walter, and fulfill the prophecy of the magic mirror.

Shirley did hold out hope that that Squiggy would rescue her from this present. It was unlikely it would be through a swan boat, since she'd have to find the right tunnel of love and board the boat by herself. She could picture him pulling up to the curb in the flying car, but would he be able to power it by himself? Maybe he'd rely on Lenny and Laverne again. All she knew was that she was the only one in the building who hadn't gone to the Burbank Business Association Dance Contest, letting Laverne think that Shirley was afraid no one would ask her to dance because she was pregnant.

Squiggy had told Shirley yesterday, "I'll be busy dancin' with Rhonda, so I won't have to worry about seein' my other self. And I may as well throw her a bone since she's crazy about me."

Shirley now sighed and set down her pen. Then she folded up her letter. She moved Laverne's bed and dropped the second and third pages on top of the burrow of dust bunnies that she had been sweeping under her roommate's bed for about a year. The Laverne who had found the note would in the Fall of '62 tell Shirley this detail, which seemed so fitting for the secrets that Shirley tried to hide. Shirley moved the bed back into place and then set the first page on her own bed. She washed and dried her hands and then tucked the first page of the letter, what Laverne would soon think was just a short impersonal note, so that it poked out of the back of the bedroom sink.

Shirley had played with the illusion that she could write something different than what Laverne remembered reading, but in the end she wrote what she remembered of Laverne's memory of a future they wouldn't quite share. After all their planning, she still hesitated to disrupt the future, even a near future that Laverne wouldn't really enjoy.

She sighed and packed up everything she could from the bedroom, from bedding to the picture of Fabian to half a bar of soap, again trying to remember the details Laverne would share in Milwaukee. She tucked Boo Boo Kitty under her arm as she carried the suitcase downstairs. She knew she might be three months pregnant and probably shouldn't be lifting heavy things, but hopefully she wasn't going too far on her own. (She had already put on weight and she wasn't getting her monthly visitor, but this could've been due to stress, no matter what the rabbit test said.) She set Boo Boo on the couch as she took down her pictures from the bulletin board and wondered how she was going to pack up the record player. She picked up a Doors album and read the title aloud: " _Strange Days_."

The little door for the tunnel that led to the boys' apartment flung open. "Hello."


	23. Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I play the game, of fantasy  
> I pretend but I know in reality  
> I need the shelter of your arms to comfort me  
> No other sound is quite the same as your name  
> No touch can do half as much  
> To make me feel better  
> So let's stay together"
> 
> —Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, 1968

By the fall of '68, Laverne had learned how to sleep in a top bunk bed without falling out. It helped that Lenny was a sleep cuddler, his long arms holding her close and safe. Also, by October, she thought she knew what the boundaries were.

Fifteen months ago, according to the calendar, she had told Squiggy, "Not in a parking lot."

"OK, I'll drive someplace a little more private."

So Laverne and a still gobsmacked Lenny got in the backseat of the flying car. She was a little nervous about Squiggy trying street driving, on the right side but with the right steering wheel. But he drove cautiously and it was still early enough in the day that there was much less traffic going from than to the fair.

She didn't ask him why he wanted her to go down on Lenny. By then, she understood enough of the logic of both Squiggy and the time-travel vehicles that it made sense. Lenny going down on her made the car fly from 1968 Anaheim to 1967 Pomona. So this was the best way to finally complete the round trip.

But it was one thing to fool around in that strange Mary Poppins chalk-drawing place, and another to do it in Pomona in broad daylight. Even an experienced parker like Laverne wasn't that bold. But she didn't ask Squiggy any more questions just then, not even what Shirley had whispered to him before she left to catch a bus back to Burbank. (Laverne's best guess was "The next time I see you, I expect you to marry me.")

Laverne and Lenny both ate fair food along the way, although she had to refuse his offer of cotton candy. She was trying to keep her mouth from drying out, so she drank lots of milkless Pepsi, hoping she wouldn't burp.

Squiggy ended up taking them to the nearest drive-in. No one was around that early, and he parked where the screen would block them from passing cars.

"Um, can we make out a little first?" Lenny asked.

"Of course, Len." Her first kiss was soft on his cheek.

She knew there wasn't really any hurry for this. They didn't have anywhere they had to be on that Summer day. Well, Laverne knew she had to go to work, at Bardwell's, on Monday, but her other self would take care of that, not knowing that she would be fired before long. And, yes, the three of them had to get back to July '68, but presumably it didn't matter much how long it took for Laverne to help them get there. So she and Lenny drifted slowly from soft kisses to French kisses and then necking. But when he undid her halter top, she slid to the floor.

"Laverne?"

"Relax, Len. You'll like this."

"Oh God!"

She undid his belt and then the button and zipper of his jeans. He lifted his bottom and wriggled so that she could slide the jeans down. Then she rubbed her boobs against his Milwaukee Braves boxers.

"Oh wow!"

He was already hard of course, but she had the time and inclination to tease him. She knew Squiggy was listening, but at least he wasn't watching. And it was only fair, considering what she overheard in the last swan boat, as Shirley and Squiggy did it in the backseat.

She had mostly looked into Lenny's aroused blue eyes as he waded through the tunnel, but every now and then she'd look up and see the magic mirror on the wall. She had the feeling she was the only one who could see it, since Squiggy and Shirley were distracted by each other, and Lenny was only looking at Laverne and the swan. Sometimes she'd see scenes of what Squiggy had described of the orgy-to-be, and other times it was that first voyage, where Laverne had ridden Lenny's lap and the backseat pair dry-humped. She'd half hoped to see another swan boat encounter, something that still lay ahead in some future, but if that would happen, it wasn't yet being broadcast through the mirror, as far as she could tell.

Lenny now reached down and stroked her face with one hand and her chest with the other. He was such a sweet boy, even when they were getting a little perverted.

She kissed his mostly hairless stomach and then kissed down to his love trail, the dark blond hair teasing its way into the boxers. Then she slid the boxers down, too.

His sweet cock was stiff and hot and as tasty as his mouth. That it belonged to a man who was crazy about her, who was thrilled when she just kissed his mouth, helped a lot, too. She started with just affectionate kisses, before progressing to teasing licks and eventually passionate sucks.

He kept calling her name and the words "yes" and "beautiful." His thrusts were shy at first, as if he was afraid of her gagging, but by the end he kept pushing deeper and deeper along her tongue and what almost felt like the back of her throat. "Want you so bad, Laverne!" he moaned as he spilled baby-juice where babies couldn't grow. (She and the pre-nun Anne Marie had once argued in whispers about this, when they heard a rumor about Rosie not-yet-Greenbaum, with Laverne naively thinking that the seed would travel down to the stomach, and "Nutsy" insisting that that was medically impossible. Shirley had woken up and asked what they were talking about, and they both said, "Elvis," their code for slumber-party conversation they wouldn't share with Shirley.)

Laverne didn't know when exactly they took flight this time but she felt the sensation of the car swaying and not just from the blowjob. She swallowed Lenny's salty cream and then carefully slid his dick out of her mouth, wiping both on her halter top. Then she kissed her way up Lenny, rubbing her body against his, until she was sitting next to him again. She looked around and saw an unreal blue sky and fluffy white clouds.

When the clouds parted, she saw the top of the carousel from _Mary Poppins_. She hoped Mary wasn't around, because she didn't want a scolding from the sometimes stern nanny. She hastily fixed her top, hoping the cum stains weren't noticeable.

"Here," Squiggy said, handing back his leather jacket.

"Um, thanks, Squig."

"It don't mean we're goin' steady or nothin'."

"Yeah, I figured."

"You need to go marry Shirley now."

"What are you, her mutter?"

"You are gonna save her from marryin' Walter, aren't ya?" Laverne asked. That was what mattered most, whether or not Shirley ever married Squiggy.

"I'll do what I can."

The car landed in front of the carousel, which was thankfully empty. To her surprise, Squiggy got out and said, "See ya later."

"Wait, where are you goin'?" Lenny cried out, all his fear of abandonment in his voice.

"To Germany to declare my love for Shirley and steal her from Wally."

Laverne just stared at him but Lenny leapt out of the car and gave Squiggy a lifting, spinning hug. "You big ol' romantique!"

"Can you not do that when your pants are down?" Squiggy said irritably, as Lenny almost tripped.

"Sorry, Squig." Lenny gently set his best friend down on the emerald-green grass. Then he tugged up his boxers and jeans.

"What the hell are you talkin' about?" Laverne demanded, hanging over the side of the car as Lenny zipped, buttoned, and belted again.

"Don't be stupid," Squiggy grumbled. "I ain't really goin'. That's the cover story to explain why I ain't goin' home with you right now."

"So she did marry Walter, and this was all pointless?" Lenny looked hurt, so she added, "I mean the time travel stuff."

"I'll explain when I get back. You two can find your way home without me, right?"

"Yes," she muttered and climbed into the driver's seat. "Come on, Len."

He looked torn between the two people who meant the most in the world to him, but Squiggy waved for him to get back in the car, so he did. He called, "Bye, Squig!" as she took off, but she was too annoyed to say anything. She drove across lush fields full of vividly colored flowers, having no idea where they were going but hoping she could find her way back to the stream.

"Thank you, Laverne," Lenny said.

"Hey, I figured it was my turn to drive."

"No, I mean, well, you know."

"You can repay me later, when we're not in a time-traveling vehicle." If they were indeed back at Disneyland in '68, or close to it, she didn't want to throw things off further.

"You got it. Ooo, penguins!"

They were approaching the penguin outdoor café. She decided it was as good a place as any to ask for directions.

One penguin approached like a car-hop, on roller-skates, and held up a menu.

"Thanks, but we're not hungry. We just want to get out of here and back to Disneyland."

Another penguin skated over and they conferred in strange chirps, clucks, and honks. Then they pointed up at a black cloud in the distance, the only scar on the beautiful sky.

"I don't understand," she said, trying not to feel silly talking to animated roller-skating penguin waiters, and knowing that this wasn't even the weirdest part of her morning.

"They mean we have to drive towards the cloud because only rain can dissolve the chalk drawing for us."

Leave it to Lenny to understand. "But won't they disappear?" she asked, not wanting to use the word "die."

"I think this world always exists for them, but for real people we can only get here through different kinds of magic. Like, the car can go to and from, but we're too far from the track that we took into this world."

Sometimes Lenny had these brilliant insights and it always threw her, although she believed he was smarter than Squiggy, for what it was worth.

The penguins nodded eagerly, so Laverne said, "Thanks, Guys." Then she drove towards the cloud.

When the rain started, she said, "We're gonna get soaked."

"I'll look for towels, and other clothes," Lenny said, feeling around in the now parked car. He found the picnic blanket, which he threw over them.

They looked at each other and giggled, then kissed. They didn't make out this time, but just cuddled as they sheltered together.

After awhile, she could no longer hear the rain pattering on the blanket. "I think it's stopped," she whispered.

He nodded and peeped out of the blanket, then he gasped. She looked around and saw they were sitting in the ice cream truck, Lenny at the wheel, in the Disneyland parking lot. The keys were in the ignition. "I guess I should drive us home."

She nodded. The first thing she did when she got home was turn on the TV to confirm that this was indeed the same day she snuck pot into Disneyland. The second thing she did was invite Lenny up to her bedroom.

They'd spent most of the past three months (well, when she wasn't-job hunting and working at Cowboy Bill's, and he wasn't picking up more sessions work) in bed, but mainly his bed. They were officially a couple now, and everyone assumed it was because Squiggy had run off to Germany to declare his love for Shirley.

People were surprised when they heard this, but not as surprised as when they heard that Shirley had run off with him. Laverne had the letters to prove it, but she was a lot more skeptical than, for instance, Rhonda. She didn't know what reality was anymore, including whether Shirley had actually written and sent letters months ago telling of her perfect life with Walter, well, perfect except for never getting pregnant. Lenny was sort of in the same boat, no pun intended. But he was happy to be with Laverne and he figured everything would work out fine now.

"So," Pop had asked just last week, "this serious?"

Laverne had shrugged and said, "I guess we're engaged to be engaged." She hadn't wanted to explain that she felt like she was in limbo, and would remain so until she and Shirley were in the same place and time.

Meanwhile, it felt good to wake up with Lenny, to feel both safe and adventurous. And the top bunk made it feel like they were floating, with the ground not too far away.

He looked both sweet and sexy in his sleep, and she kind of wanted to wake him up with a blowjob, but she knew that wouldn't be safe in the top bunk. So she settled for a kiss on the cheek.

He opened his eyes halfway and grinned. "I was havin' the nicest dream."

"About what?" she asked, stroking his bare chest.

"My favorite person in the world."

"Oh, and who's that?" she teased as her hand started to follow the love trail down to his pajama bottoms.

From the bathroom came the familiar two syllables of greeting.


	24. More Today Than Yesterday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I don't remember what day it was  
> I didn't notice what time it was  
> All I know is that I fell in love with you  
> And if all my dreams come true  
> I'll be spending time with you"
> 
> —Spiral Starecase [sic], 1969

It was the summer of 1969 and the first time the five of them had been to Disneyland together. Shirley sighed and thought what a strange path it'd taken to get there.

When Squiggy emerged from under the stairs of her Burbank apartment, he said, "I'll explain everything after we leave." Then he helped her carry everything into the little tunnel connecting their apartments, and apparently connecting other things. After he set the record player on the floor, he closed the door from the inside and said, "Please sit."

She looked around and saw a lounge chair. "Isn't this Rhonda's tanning chair?"

"She'll replace it," he said with a shrug, as if he'd already seen this happen.

"And Laverne's lucky lava lamp?"

Another shrug. "It was so dark in here and I needed some aluminumation."

This tunnel had a low ceiling and even someone as small as Shirley had to crouch, so she sighed and eased into the lounge chair. Squiggy had Groucho posture as he paced and talked, the lava bubbles casting an eerie glow on his pale face and all-black outfit.

Without going into detail, he told of how he had Laverne perform fellatio on Lenny at an empty drive-in to power the flying car. The car took them back to the Mary Poppins chalked countryside, with the Disneyland of the summer of 1968 presumably accessible from there.

"...But I knew I couldn't go with 'em. I had to go back to last October, this October, and get you."

"Well, thank you, but how did you get here?"

"After they drove off, I walked around the carousal, wondering if I was supposed to ride a horse and jerk off."

"Squiggy!" she scolded, although she wanted to laugh.

"Well, I figured it was somethin' sex-related like usual, but I was on my own. Then I noticed a door in the middle, you know that little room where they keep the gears and stuff?"

She nodded. She could almost picture it, although she hadn't been on a merry-go-round in a very long time.

"So I opened the door and went in. It was completely dark and I had to feel my way. It seemed to be a narrow tunnel with smooth walls and an even floor, although it twisted and turned. And just when I was gettin' tired, I ended up here."

"Wait, this apartment building is connected to Disneyland?"

"Yeah, here's me being a dummy and payin' admission all this time."

She decided not to point out that her friends still hadn't taken her. Instead, she said, "But, Squiggy, it's three months since I got back from Pomona."

"Yeah, I figured. You're fatter now."

"Thank you."

"No, I just meant...." He sounded uncharacteristically flustered. He suddenly dropped to his knees beside the lounge chair. "Shirl," he whispered, "are you...?"

She explained to him the confusing situation of her maybe-pregnancy.

"Then we need to wait a year."

"A year?! Squiggy, I don't want to stay in here a year!"

He took her hand. "We don't have to. We just have to come back to regular time no sooner than October 1968, so that there's enough time for you to be three months with child after I swept you off your toes in Germany."

"With child?"

"I cleaned it up for ya."

"Thanks. But I don't want to fool around in here." The "on Rhonda's tanning chair" was implied.

"We don't have to. Time moves different in here than in the swan or the car, or regular life."

"Has it always been like that?"

"No, but then there weren't always so many doors in here." He let go of her hand and crawled over to a tiny door a foot off the ground.

"Squiggy, you can't fit through there," she said, thinking of _Alice in Wonderland_.

"No, but my arm can." He opened the door and reached in, pulling out a letter.

"Is that the mailbox? Wait, aren't you breaking federal law?"

He crawled back to her. "It wouldn't be the first time. Here." He handed her the letter.

"This is from Laverne, to me, somewhere in Germany."

"Yeah, I gave her my Cousin Hannah's address, I mean the me of last Fall, after you left."

"But didn't Laverne question why it wasn't an Army base?"

"I said she could send a goodbye letter there and then you'd get it from Hannah and send her the address of the Army base."

"Oh. So I guess I should write back with the address of a German Army base."

"Hold on." He crawled over to a little box and brought it back, filled with pens and stationery, including envelopes with what looked like the return address of a German Army base.

"Where did this come from?"

"I stockpiled it for you to use now, although I wasn't sure exactly how it would all work out."

"Thank you. Do you know what I wrote to Laverne?"

"No, just that at some point you said you never got pregnant by Walter."

"OK." She opened Laverne's letter, figuring it wasn't an invasion of privacy, since it was meant for her. Then she wrote a letter and sealed it in an envelope. She noticed then that Squiggy had taken the time to put cancelled foreign stamps on every envelope. "Your attention to detail is impressive."

"Thanks. I did what I could." He took the letter and put it through the little door, closing the door and then opening it after a minute, to take out another letter from Laverne. It reminded Shirley a little of the futuristic oven she got to try out in the Bardwell's window.

They kept up this routine, Shirley writing letters to and reading letters from Laverne, Squiggy playing mailman, until Laverne's last letter was dated July 1968.

"OK, now you need to write a letter saying I've just shown up and declared my love for you."

"Would you do that?"

"Shirley, Walter ain't right for you. You need a guy who understands you and has been crazy about you for years, even if he ain't good with his feelings."

"Is that what you'd say?"

"Well, and I'd give you a big smooch to knock your socks off." He leaned over the lounge chair and did so.

She played with his hair-worm. "I love you, too, Squiggy, but even now, you don't have to marry me."

"If I don't marry you, Laverne ain't never gonna marry Lenny, and that would break his heart."

"You're a good friend."

"Obviously. Send the letter about running away with me with the return address crossed off, like you don't know where we're heading."

She nodded and wrote that letter, including confessing that she'd lied about her happiness with Walter, although definitely not giving Laverne the real reasons for the lies. Squiggy "mailed it off" when it was ready.

"Should we wait for a reply?"

"Nah, she wouldn't know where to send it."

"Should I send her updates from 'the road'?"

"No, we're too wrapped up in each other, and trying to avoid Wally's pursuit, for you to write. Besides, Laverne knows I didn't really go to Germany. She just needed that last letter to show to Rhonda and her dad and everyone."

"So how do we know when it's time to come back?"

"I'll go take a peek." He headed over to the other end of this tunnel and opened a door. She heard his voice echo as if in a bathroom as he said, "Hello."

Then she heard Laverne swear as if startled. And there was a sound of what would turn out to be Lenny falling out of the top bunk bed.

"Sorry for the timing, but I just wondered if it was October yet. If not, me and Shirl can come back later."

"You've got Shirley with you?" Laverne exclaimed.

Shirley carefully got out of the lounge chair and made her way out of the tunnel, into the boys' surprisingly un-filthy bathroom. Then there were a lot of hugs and updates.

And here they were nine months later, at Disneyland: Andrew and Shirley Squiggman with their three-month-old, Hannah; Leonard and Laverne Kosnowski, both eating for two.

"So anyone up for Mr. Toad's Wild Road?" Squiggy suggested.

"No!" chorused three voices, and Hannah started crying.

  


THE END?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to Missy for her questions and comments, without which this story would be half as long. Any remaining plot-holes are the fault of canon, or Al Pacino.


End file.
